He snuggles close on my lap,
dear boy with tears dripping,
heart as broken as the toy that fell apart.
“Can you smile?” I ask, brushing droplets away.
An emphatic shake of the head.
No. No smiles.
So I wink and draw in a shocked breath,
“You lost your smile?” I clutch him tight,
“What shall we do? What shall we do?
No smile? Oh, dear.”
And at the strange expressions and exaggerated tone,
what once was lost is found.
Disclaimer: No actual pirates were harmed in the taking of these photographs.
“Mooooom!!” I clumped over toward the house, frustration steaming out of every pour.
“Tasha, stop whining,” Mom said as she turned toward me. It was her standard reply so I didn’t worry too much about it.
I was dragging Lilly with me. My goal in life, at that point, was to drag my best friend everywhere I went. It helped fix the numbers a bit. Three boys and two girls. With the superior talents of women, we were dead even.
She was my best friend ever; even though she was younger (almost a whole year!) and quite a lot shorter. She put up with me rather well. Even my bossiness.
I wanted her to come visit every single Sunday. Even when there wasn’t evening church. And it wasn’t just because her big brother was cute. I mean, I liked him, but really, I had enough boys around.
“Mom,” I said more un-whine like, “The boys won’t play with us. They say we’re just girls.”
I wasn’t always crazy about playing boy games. I really liked my dolls and frilly dresses. But I really disliked being told I wasn’t allowed to play. Especially when it was suggested that I was somehow the scum beneath their feet. It was like declaring war.
Mom got her that ain’t gonna fly look and I knew this was one battle I had won. Hands down. “Boys!” her voice carried and they came slouching around the side of the building casting Lilly and I evil looks. “You can all play together.”
It sounded like a statement but everyone knew it was a command.
“But Moooomm,” they whined, “she thinks she can tell us what to do!”
Which, of course, was completely untrue. I knew I could tell them what to do. Besides, didn’t they know that Mom hated whining?
With a stern look Mom went back to her work.
The boys formed a huddle and whispered among themselves. After a bit of laughter they turned to us. “Let’s play pirates,” they said, “We’re the pirates and you’re the prisoners.”
They wanted to start right in (boys know nothing about playing make-believe) but I instructed them on the proper art of preparation. Where was the ship? Where were the cannons? Did they have anything to use as an eye-patch? Who was going to have the wooden leg?
They stared at me, dumbfounded at my brilliance, no doubt. Probably shocked to their toes at how much they would have been missing if they had decided to play alone.
The Great Pirate Ship was the side yard with the tree in the middle as the pole for the mast. The big red fuel tank by the house was the ship header and I could almost imagine the miles of white material unfurling and snapping to attention against the sky.
From somewhere one of the boys produced rope. “We should make you walk the plank but instead we’re just going to tie you to the tree.” They laughed and smirked. I sighed. It was a pole. And what Pirate smirks? I thought about giving them a lesson on pirating but they seemed dead set on tying us up right then.
Lilly was looking a bit unsure but I wasn’t frightened, even one tiny bit. Those silly little boys. Didn’t they know that I read Nancy Drew books all the time?!
Getting kidnapped is an art. One that I was pretty sure I could handle. The key to getting kidnapped by Pirates is keeping your cool. I smiled a bit and carefully turned my wrists, holding them slightly apart as they tied us to the tree.
Once they had us secured they all looked at each other and took off.
“Hey!” We called.
“Have fun girls!” one of them laughed, “We’re done playing pirates.”
It was a pretty good trick, for amateurs. But truly, if I wasn’t around to help them out, they would fail at almost everything they did. Lilly was casting me wide-eyed looks but I just shrugged my shoulders. “They’ll be back,” I said, eyes rolling, “But when they come there will be a great surprise for them!”
I started to tug at my wrists and the rope tightened. I almost panicked. Almost, because for a moment I forgot that I was a master at solving mysteries and saving myself from near death.
Of course, Nancy Drew never faced abandonment by pirates but I was certain I had learned my lessons well. Besides, the boys were so helpless at pirating; the only things they knew were the things I had told them. It really was a surprise that they had left my presence at all.
Despite my (often) wild daydreams about being rescued by a great Hero, I knew this was time to put my “save-yourself” abilities into action. (Besides, if a Hero did show up he’d probably pick the adorable straight-haired Lilly over the tall, gangly, frizzy-haired me.)
I went to work on my wrists, turning and twisting. To my great surprise, um, relief, um, satisfaction, the rope loosened and slipped off. I quickly freed Lilly. “Let’s hide and scare them when they come back!” I whispered, in case my voice carried the great distance they had put between us. We snuck behind the big fuel tank and waited. When our legs began cramping I said, “I’ve got a better idea. Let’s go spy on them!”
Just like Nancy Drew, we were going to track down the bad guys and gather information to deport them to prison forever. We snuck through underbrush and braved the pushki forests. The dread pirates were on their last war-party.
They weren’t hard to find, at all. I needed to teach them a lesson about sneaking. Obviously, it would have to wait for another day. Maybe when they were on my team instead of the opposing team. We spied on them for hours, or at least ten minutes. They were putting on a great act, pretending to play a different game besides pirates. But spying on pirates pretending not to be pirates is actually quite boring.
We snuck back and disappeared into the bedroom to play with my dolls, Annabelle and Sally. Just before supper Mom stuck her head in. “I thought you were playing with the boys,” she said.
“Shhhh!” I admonished, “we’re playing a trick on them!”
“Yeah,” Lilly offered, “they think we’re still tied to the tree but we escaped.”
Mother’s eyebrows rose, probably in shock that her sons were such terrible pirates.
“Yeah, Mom,” I said, “they really are pretty much the worst pirates ever, even for pretend ones.”
She had a funny look on her face. I’m sure feeling a bit proud that at least her daughter had some common sense.
When the dinner bell rang, Lilly and I were sitting at the table with smirks on our faces. (It’s a well known fact that prisoners who escape are prone to smirk.) It took them awhile to show up so I know they were probably out searching for us.
They were terrible pirates but I have to admit they did quite well at hiding their shock and dismay that we had freed ourselves. “Tricked you, didn’t we?” I couldn’t help but comment when the sat down.
That brother of mine, he’s such a good actor; all he did was roll his eyes and say, “Don’t be dumb, we tricked you.”
But everybody knows that pirates never trick the prisoners. It doesn’t even make good story-book sense. (And I’m positive that Nancy Drew would have escaped too, maybe almost as skillfully as we did, if she had been kidnapped by roaming pirates.)
Disclaimer: despite the events of this story being almost entirely true, my oldest brother claims he has “no memory” of such an incident. This is understandable as it is a well-known fact that childhood trauma can cause memory loss. I can’t imagine the state of his poor mind when he came back for us and found all traces gone. We’ll try to get therapy for him at some point.
Read part one of the childhood adventures here.
They say the only things sure in life are death and taxes. I beg to differ.
Laundry is a pretty sure thing. Maybe not the actual doing of laundry but most definitely the need to do laundry.
My first home was a log cabin (I did learn to read there but that is where my similarities to Abraham Lincoln come to a screeching halt). It was located in the Southern Tier of New York State. I have fragmented memories of watching Mama hang laundry in the side yard. They are soft memories, like fluffy clouds of cotton candy. They consist of white sheets flapping in the breeze and blending with the sharp smell of fresh grass.
I’ve heard the stories for years. How Mama used a ringer washer and loved it. She was a farm-girl through and through so the move to the unfinished log cabin on the edge of the woods was an adventure. The ringer washer was no trouble, she always said, until the ringer broke. By then Papa had bought her a dryer and when she tried to use it with the too wet clothes– sparks flew. Literally. That was the end of the dryer and the clothes flapped happily on the line once more.
Then we moved.
The log cabin on Coon Road disappeared and the week-long trip to Homer, Alaska began. Mama did not plan to do laundry between New York and Alaska. She packed clothes for a week and prayed that her car-sick prone children would not lose their meals. It was nice a prayer though not exactly effective.
It wasn’t the nausea that did us in, however, it was the fleas. That one place we stopped to sleep? Bad choice.
Mama found a laundromat and I watched with round eyes as everything was washed and dried in a few hours. Incredible.
In Alaska there was no clothes line. Mama nearly wept at the sight of the practically-new washer and dryer installed right inside the front door. It was handy, convenient and addicting. She said (and so far Papa has submitted to her request) that she would never again be without a good washer and dryer.
I was four years old and the convenience factor meant little to me. There was something however that I quickly fell in love with- the warmth of the dryer. There were often clean clothes on top waiting to be folded and another load whirling away inside so I would climb up and curl into the freshly dried clothes to take my afternoon nap.
It wasn’t until over a decade later, while flipping through a photo album and happening upon a picture of me snoozing away, that Mama figured out why her daughter had a strange attraction to the dryer. ”It was warm!” I told her and she laughed until tears squeezed out of the corners of her eyes.
For the rest of my childhood, from Alaska to Florida, our washer and dryers always worked. Mama liked laundry. In fact, it was her chore of choice. I folded clothes here and there and sometimes collected them but I always looked at my friends strangely when they talked about turning thirteen and having to take over doing their own laundry. If I tried to take over the laundry Mama would have definitely frowned at me. (And she has a fierce frown.)
Instead, I took over the meal planning. And cooking. And baking. And grocery shopping. And checkbook balancing. I flourished at it and Mama sighed in relief.
At college it was a laundromat again.
Then I bought a house and moved in with two roommates. There was a washer and no dryer. We happily strung up a clothesline. I had lovely thoughts of summery-smelling clothes and sunshine whitened sheets. They were pretty thoughts.
Did I mention that I was working full-time? My laundry hung on the line for days. I would often joke that perhaps I shouldn’t bother washing it first but should just hang the dirty clothes and squirt laundry soap over them and let the rain water wash them. I don’t think I ever had a load of laundry that went up and came down without getting at least a sprinkle of rain.
The good part? Rain-water adds a nice scent to clothes. They should make a soap that smells like that.
My next move took me to the mission-field in Brazil. There I lived in extremes. Sometimes, there was a maid to do my laundry. She used a ringer washer and deposited the wet clothes back on my porch and I hung them around, folded over double because I did not own clothespins.
Other times I washed everything by hand in my mini bathroom sink. With cold water. And a bar of soap. I earned some calluses and muscles through that experience.
Soon after moving back home, I got married to a man who owned a farm, several dozen tractors, a couple pick-up trucks, a plethora of cows and no washer.
Back to the laundromat I went.
When he surprised me that Christmas with an over/under washer and dryer that fit right into the corner of our bedroom, I danced a jig and thanked him with a thousand kisses. It was the best Christmas present ever.
Then we moved. To Haiti.
The mission board graciously offered to buy me a brand-new washer when we arrived. We sent the Haitians after it and they came back with this… uhm… thing.
It was a washer, I think.
It was tiny. Like, teeny-tiny. There were no words on the instructions, only pictures. Strange pictures.
And when we first hooked it up, it danced. All over the kitchen.
You think I’m joking but I’m way serious.
The other missionary that was there, an older man in his seventies, was inside our house getting a few tools and he came running out with eyes as big as saucers. “There is something wrong with that machine!” He screeched, “It’s jumping up and down all over the place!” Then he proceeded to demonstrate. I nearly wet my pants laughing.
We did eventually find the problem, a couple long bolts stuck in to keep it stable for travel purposes.
I could only wash two sets of clothes at a time (that was literally all that fit in it) and I hung them on my porch to dry. I no longer left them out overnight, since items of clothing were apt to disappear if I was not nearby to stand guard.
And I fell in love with hanging laundry.
My little Sarah, helping with laundry (and perfecting her pout)
It was satisfying and calming. I loved clothespins (my dear Mama brought me some when they came to visit) and fresh spicy air. I loved standing at the kitchen stove and watching the clothes move in the breeze. I loved that it was just being there that dried them.
I especially loved that I could hang them on a line and not drape them over cactus like everyone around me did. I didn’t mind eating like the Haitians, speaking their language, learning their customs or dancing with their children– but I drew the line at getting cactus needles in my unmentionables.
Since we moved back to the farm there are days that I love my dryer. It is wonderful in the winter months and helpful on busy spring or harvest days. But I still sigh in delight when I get a chance to hang out my laundry.
And yes, sometimes the clothes stay on the line for days. That rain-water smell is still my favorite smell ever.
Do you have any memories of laundry? A funny story to tell? A pretty picture to share? Come on over to gretchenLouise.com and join in the link-up!
Last week I lost internet connection and my laptop stopped working properly. In the week that followed I noticed a few interesting things…
I still scratch words down and love it, even if they never see the glow of a computer screen. Guess I really am a writer. Whoop, whoop.
ouch. Guess I need to pull out the ole timer again and practice a bit of restraint.
It seems that I had more time to think of things to do away from home. Some were good (i.e. visiting a couple friends who were sick) and some not so good (i.e. running to Arbys for a jamocha shake)
Which means that I still have many questions about this strange psycho-neurotic tendency.
For example: Why do I avoid folding laundry when the actual act of folding is something I enjoy? Why do I despise hangers? Why do I so easily forget the clothes drying on the line until after the evening dew has fallen?
These are but a few of many questions. Perhaps they are the type that will never be answered but I do mull over them periodically. (perhaps the key is mull over them WHILE I fold)
**interesting side note: my husband brought the laundry in from the line while I was typing this. I could have kissed his feet.
Jeeze- Louise. Not much of a people-pleaser or anything, huh?
I hope you enjoyed our little story. We enjoyed writing it! Please remember that everything on nmetzler.com is copyrighted. Have a glorious day!
No child can resist ice cream. Keep your freezer stocked.
I have a Sugar-Plum, a Love-Muffin, a Zell-Belle and a Cricket.
“Is that my little Love-Muff?” is always met by laughter and shrieks.
Once upon a time
There was a little Cricket
Who leaped here and there
She had an Auntie
Who thought she was the best
And always tickled her right behind the ear!
(followed by tickles and giggles, of course)
editor’s note: most often it will be you.
And when all you can fit is your head and they say, “Come all the way in!” Just sweetly respond with, “Oh, darling, I shrunk myself to the size of my head. Isn’t that an awesome-cool auntie trick?!”
If you don’t know what these are… well, sorry, but you lose.
Once up on a time there was a little Love-Muffy who had sparkling eyes and pretty blond hair and could dance like an angel dropped straight from heaven…
Little Pooka-Man came overnight and woke up at 4am. We snuck to the kitchen and made popcorn (which was eaten under the table because you can’t eat food on the table in the middle of the night.) Duh, everybody knows that.
And give them big cups of hot chocolate or Maple Syrup milk!
Or something equally memorable.
Snow dripping off his hat, cheeks glowing pink, he gasps for breath, “I think I saw polka-dots in the snow!”
“Really?” I smile, quizzically.
“Yes! Three polka-dots! I’m thinking about what it could be.” He tilts his head thoughtfully then says slowly, “It’s a tiny bit of a mystery.”
“A mystery indeed,” I nod gravely.
The door shuts and the bundle of orange disappears.
My hands are in suds when he comes back inside. “Shut the door!” I holler from the sink and I hear a slam.
His eyes are glowing as he comes around the corner, “I think I solved the mystery.”
“I’m dying to know,” I respond, and it’s true.
“A rabbit,” he nods firmly.
“A bunny rabbit?”
“Yes! One mystery solved.”
“You don’t suppose,” I whisper, “that the Easter bunny got lost in the snow storm?”
“No, no.” He shakes his head.
I clap my hands together and suds spray, “Then it must be a chocolate bunny, running around. Do you think you could catch it for me? I do so love chocolate.”
“It’s not chocolate, Tasha,” he gives me his sorry you’re so slow look. Then his eyes dance, “But maybe I can catch it! Do you have a box?”
I look around. “Sorry, buddy. Maybe you can find something outside?”
The door slams.
A few minutes later, my hands wrinkled but dry, he comes pounding in again, breathless. “A carrot? Do you have a carrot?”
I dig through the fridge and find a few left from last fall. I pull one out.
“Perfect,” he exclaims and the door slams again.
Not two minutes later, a head sticks back in. ”A string? Do you have a nice long string?”
Baler twine is sliced and he’s charging back out. “I’ll catch that rabbit for sure!”
It’s not until later, after his mom picks him up and I’m saying goodbye and, “Yes, I’ll check your trap over the weekend!” and we’re grilling hamburgers on the back porch for dinner, that my husband says, “Tasha, you have to come look at this!”
A rabbit trap. Of course.
The forests of my childhood were wrought with adventures and breathtaking beauty. Land marks set boundaries and our world spanned several acres of wooded terrain.
On one side was the man-made cave, which was called that simply to differentiate between it and the bear cave on the other side of campus. It was dark and damp, full of cobwebs and spiders. I never liked it but I kept my mouth shut. You don’t speak of such things when there are mostly bigger boys around. Nothing would please them more than tying you up, dropping you off and letting your screams of terror bring the ceiling down, burying you alive.
You may think I’m overreacting but I was well aware of how much my oldest brother wished he could have his own room. It was survival of the fittest or rather, the most quick-witted. Never show weakness. Ever.
The platform was several hundred yards away from the cave. I suggested one time that we find a more, well, exciting name. “The South East Fort” or something like that.My brother gave me a blank look, “It’s a platform,” he said.
Four trees in a square with a framed in plywood platform eight feet in the air and a ladder. So Platform it stayed.
I rarely went there alone. Eight feet in the air was quite high and there were no sides, just open air. (And to be honest, heights were not my favorite thing, but I never admitted to that either.)
One spring, when I was about nine, I ventured that way. My original plan was to play in my pine tree house but when I arrived I found the sad remains of my doll that had been left over winter.
I paused for a small burial with a lovely rock pile as a marker. If you found it and looked carefully, you might still be able to see the name “Sally” scratched into a stone.
She wasn’t my favorite doll, so it was all good. But who wants to stick around after a funeral? So I went on my way. I don’t think that I meant to go to the Platform that day but my wandering took me in that direction and when I saw it, peaking from between the pine trees, I had to climb up.
It was a lot scarier when there weren’t big boys daring you with their eyes and saying things like, “Ah, she’s probably scared. Little Miss Prissy might fall down and hurt herself.”
Anger has a braving effect on me and in the face of taunting I would hardly noticed the great distance to the ground. I bluffed my way through it this day, imagining the big boys and their dares.
When I reached the top and was safely sitting down in the middle, I stared up at the blue sky that peeked through the swaying tree branches and fresh green leaves. Up there it was almost like I was a lost princess trapped on a sky-island with the vast world below me.
“Princess!” my Hero would call as he swooped in, fighting his way with death-defying acts of bravery. He would take one look at me and fall in love. We would plan a lovely outdoor wedding (we fell in love under green leaves and blue skies, after all) and the most delightful part would be…
A distant clanging of a cow bell yanked me from my day-dreams.
I scurried for the ladder. The rule in our family was simple: when the bell rings you run for the house. And the further away you were, the faster you had to run.
I was a long, long ways from home.
Just as my foot hit the forest floor a twig snapped to my left. I looked up, directly into the eyes of a huge, hungry mama moose.
There are some lessons you learn early on the Alaskan frontier: you don’t mess with mama moose. Ever.
I shot up that ladder quicker than a chipmunk on steroids.
My daydreams were feeling incredibly like reality. I really was trapped on an island in the sky. The unfortunate part was that a hero probably wouldn’t be coming (and most certainly wouldn’t be interested in marrying a nine year old).
From my perch on the Platform I tried to stare down the moose. It never blinked. I tried screaming and yelling and waving my arms. It never moved.
It was then that I heard the bell ring the second time. Horror clutched me. I knew very well what would happen if the bell rang three times and I wasn’t home.
Should I make a run for it? I was pretty fast. Maybe I was faster than that big lumbering mama moose. I climbed down. My feet rustled the dried up leaves. The moose took a step toward me.
I was fast all right. In no time at all I was back on that Platform.
I was desperate. Would I be trapped forever? Maybe I would be one of the stories that never got told because my hero never came. Maybe when they found me in a year or two they would bury my bones in the man-made cave because they didn’t even know that I was scared of all the spiders and being buried alive.
Well, I’d be dead, of course, but still.
I lay down and stared at the pieces of blue. The way the branches were and how the leaves grew almost made the shape of a heart.
“Oh, God,” I whispered, “I don’t really want to die on the Platform.” I paused for a moment then continued, “But it does seem better than being eaten by a moose.”
I glanced over hoping that prayer made the moose disappear. Big black eyes stared back at me. Then I heard it. Distant but clear.
“Tasha!” It was my brother, Zac.
I jumped up, screaming, “I’m on the Platform! There’s a moooooooose!”
Through the clearing came my big brother. At ten years old he was taller, stronger and most importantly, carrying a big stick.
The moose looked at him then turned and walked away. (Probably going off to warn the other wild animals of the stick wielding warrior that threatened to slaughter it for dinner.)
I wanted to jump up and down, hug him and maybe cry a little. It’s not everyday that one is almost left to die alone in the woods and then be buried in a cave full of spiders.
My brother offered no sympathy for my plight. “You’re in big trouble,” he said, “Mom sent me to find you.”
All the way home I rehearsed my story. I couldn’t really talk about the cave, of course, because the boys might hear and threaten me with it. Nor could I mention dying because Mom might forbid me from playing in the woods. I only had one option left.
“I’m sorry, Mother, of course…” my voice droned on in monotone as I carefully explained why I felt that I had made the wisest decision possible. Mom and Dad were big on being wise. If I could just convince her…
Thankfully, Mom was completely distracted and just said, “Don’t go so far away so close to lunch time. We have people coming.” And then sent me to the bathroom to wash up.
I stared in the mirror at my stringy blond hair that hung in thick clumps around my face. I could almost picture a crown nestled in. Perhaps made out of pine needles and pieces of blue sky.
I knew right then that when I got bigger I was going to write a new kind of fairytale. The one about the Princess who was always getting caught in life-threatening situations who had three brothers who took turns rescuing her. Then, eventually, when they were all practiced up on rescuing and being rescued, the boys could go find other princesses to save and a hero could come for her.
Preferably, however, she wouldn’t have to be saved from the spiders in the man-made cave.
a little taste of my teenage years for your reading enjoyment.
I was fourteen that year and pretty certain that I was an adult. I was working to finish high school (it’s hard to be completely grown while still in school, of course) and had one little year to go.
When my oldest brother’s best friend came to visit, I took a bit longer trying to tame my frizzy curls and attempted to keep my perpetually sunburned nose powdered.
It wasn’t that I had a crush. It was more, well, he was older (like, eighteen!) and I wanted to be thought of as grown up. I was hoping to stun him with my maturity, since the last time we had seen each other I only had a measly little eleven years under my belt. A lot can change in three whole years, you know!
That first night he convinced everyone in the family to put a salt and vinegar chip on their tongue and inhale. They all laughed hysterically but I kept my peace (and only tried it when no one was looking). I was pretty sure that he couldn’t help but notice how adult-ish I was. Who would have been able to overlook it?
Imagine my excitement when it was decided that I would go to an amusement park with them. Just me. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that my other two brothers were in school and I was homeschooled. It probably had everything to do with my stunning example of maturity that first night.
Indeed. Me, with two eighteen year olds. Didn’t that make me, like, eighteen, too?
Most of the trip was uneventful. They talked about guy things and I kept my mouth shut (always a safe, adult option, right?).
At the park they pretty much left me to my own devices, which was fine. I mean, I was grown up. So I spent the time wandering around a few feet behind them, trying to act, well, like them.
It was then that we saw it. The Congo. A brand-new rollercoaster that was longer and crazier than any other in the park. It was a new design where your feet dangled as you raced and swooped all over.
It was a doosy and you had to ride barefoot if you had on flip flops. And this was Florida, I was always wearing flip flops.
As we waited in line I was feeling quite proud of myself. The ride had rows of three. There were three of us. Perfect. I would be one of them.
Maybe, maybe he’d even think I was cute. (that is, after all, the final test of adult-ness, right? An older guy thinking you’re something?)
I was still congratulating myself when we went to sit down. He looked at the seats and then looked at me. It was obvious he was going to say something. I waited in anticipation… maybe, he was going to insist that I sit in the middle by him!
“You can only sit by us if you promise not to scream.”
All my joy dissipated into thin air. He thought I was going to scream like a…a…twelve year old?!
It wasn’t so much that I was crushed. It was more like:
I. was. furious.
The Irish blood in me came steaming out of every pour. Any crush I might have had dissipated into thin air.
“Isn’t that right, Ez?” He turned to my brother who was standing there stupidly (not jumping in and saying, “What? My little sister would never do anything like that. She is far too mature for such antics. Why, she’s hardly younger than us, you know!). I sent a fiery glance his way and it must have translated something because as I stomped to my seat and pulled the yellow bar down firmly, I noticed that he didn’t say a word. Not a single word. Although he did make a funny sound and rub a hand over his mouth.
His friend wasn’t quite as smart. He talked and talked. I don’t think he had any idea how lucky he was that I was sitting on my shoes.
Flip flops are very handy things to squash annoying bugs with.
I didn’t speak a word to him the rest of his two week trip. I don’t think he noticed.
I also don’t think he noticed that I was still irritated at him three years later when I was visiting his hometown. I spent quite a few evenings with friends at his apartment. Every once in a while he’d get talking and I couldn’t help but remember that day on the rollercoaster. He was lucky it was Alaska and I didn’t wear flip flops.
On my eighteenth birthday I reminisced with my Mom and, for the first time in my life, mentioned the story. She listened, laughed, and said, “Oh, Tasha, if that was me I would have sat down without a word and the moment the ride began I would have started screaming and not stopped until the end.”
Now, why hadn’t I thought of that?
(note: if this almost-thirty year old is ever on another rollercoaster with that boy… he’ll wish I’d used the flip flops.)
Once upon a time there was an adorable little boy standing by the side of the road in Lazille, Aquin, Haiti. A crazy white lady with a camera smiled at him and began to click pictures. He stared. Unsure but mesmerized.
Then the strangest thing in the world happened! The lady spoke. She said, “Como ye?” Which in other languages means, “How are you?”
The boy stared.
The boy’s mother said, “Answer! She asked how you are!” (In Creole, of course)
The white lady smiled sweetly and leaned forward to take more pictures as she said, “Ou pa pi mal? Obiyn ou pa bon?” (You not too bad? Or you not too good?)
And this is the response that white lady got.
