The crinkled tape and vibrant red-tinged tubing looks like leftover materials from an ancient bloodletting. Charlie's battered behind gets just a moment's rest before a new site is gored into his skin.

The pump does a lot of fantastic things. According to Charlie, if you press the up arrow three times while holding down the bolus button, you can create an impenetrable blue glowing force field. Up arrow four times while holding down bolus can obliterate the High School Musical poster on his sister's wall with a single, powerful laser blast. Me? I like the ease in which we can fine-tune and tweak. I like that he doesn't have to be 200 all night. We can punch in just a dash of insulin to drop him to a safe 150.

But (and you knew the "but" was coming), the pump often sucks. You won't find a whole lot of negative press out there regarding the pump. People generally rave about it. My beef isn't so much with the mechanics of the pump itself but rather the undependability of the infusion sets.

My problem is that Charlie's blood sugar was 518 last night. Yup, I said 518. Not a typo. We were just testing him with the assumption that it was time for dessert. Yet another case of blood in the tubing, halting the flow of insulin.

I don't like that he can eat a big meal and unbeknownst to us, he's not getting a drop of the insulin we thought he was getting.

When everything is working as it should, the pump is great. But when it's not, it's catastrophic. And whether it's absorption or blood in his tubing or scar tissue or his sorry looking ass simply running out of unblemished real estate, it's just not good. It doesn't just happen once in a blue moon. We encounter bad sites all the time.

Perhaps it's time to leave the ass. Perhaps we've outstayed our welcome. Charlie is not good with change. I know he will surely try to fight it ferociously ,

with all the force fields and laser beams that he can.