Hello! McFly!

My [brilliant] firstborn came upstairs the other night - right around the time when things are suppose to be [finally] winding down, the kids are in bed asleep, or at least they're not seen by me and I have a moment to breathe - and he declared,

"Ummm, I think I have a problem."

As he held out his arm to show us the damage.

He had a plastic piece of one of my other children's money bank stuck - SUCTIONED rather - to his arm!
OK - first off....WHY does he feel the need to dissect banks? And toys, contents of drawers, garbage cans, and a myriad of other household objects for that matter. Why can't he just LEAVE. THINGS. ALONE. (and nice & neat & clean and in pristine condition. OK, so maybe that's too lofty of a wish).
And secondly....WHAT WAS HE THINKING?
Probably something along the lines of "I wonder what would happen if I put a 10-inch in diameter plastic tube on my 12-inch in diameter bare skin arm?"
And then he definitely found out.
We were tugging and pulling and twisting -- all with no luck.
We used water and Vaseline and Pam cooking spray -- and it wouldn't budge.

I worried if it would cut off all circulation to his arm and would lead to his arm self-detaching.

His Dad, unamused, informed him, "This is the kind of thing that will land you in the E.R."
And I'm thinking, Oh great, that's all I need. I was just settling down for the evening!
Ryan was only mildly embarrassed with all his dad's inquiries about his intelligence.

I started to brainstorm of all the people I knew who had Power Tools that could be used in the emergency removal of this foreign object that refused to come off his arm.

At one point, his dad instructed him to stand opposite of him, facing him, hold his arm out straight in front of him, put his hand in a fist against Matt's stomach. Then Matt pulled down on the bank piece his direction and Ryan leaned back the other way.
The tube didn't budge - it looked like it might, but it didn't.
But Ryan did exclaim, "Man, Dad, you've got Abs of Steel!" (Pretty remarkable for Ryan to say that considering all the non-compliments he'd just been getting from his Dad!)
Since the previous procedure looked so promising while I'd been observing it, I decided to repeat it, but this time with ME on the opposite side of Ryan, pulling it down with his fist bracing against MY bowl-full of jelly stomach. I didn't get it off either.
And incidentally, I received NO comments from Ryan, so I went ahead and asked him, "So, do I have Abs of Steel?"
To which he responded, "Not so much!"

Eventually, we did get it off - at home. Thanks to the commotion that brought our quiet evening to a halt, Katelyn came out of her room and gave us an idea to try which did the trick!

Ryan NEVER was able to come up with an explanation as to WHY he did it, however.