Wednesday, November 30, 2005

She Said It, I Promise

Yesterday was an incredibly heavy day. The funeral I went to was for a kid (I say kid even though he was 23) who died on Thanksgiving Day. He was a brilliant and loving and wonderful soul who will be missed by all who knew him. I wept for pretty much 1.5 hours solid. Couldn’t stop thinking about my own kids and how much I love them and how incredibly difficult it must be to lose a child.

Oy.

Anyway, since I’m still totally drained, I thought I’d pull out a story about my Mom which could possibly be amusing. Maybe it won’t be to you, but it will be to me. And since she reads this on occasion, she’ll be chagrined beyond belief. Sorry in advance, Mother.

Some background:

I’m an only child. Not only am I an only child, but I’m the son of an only child (father), who was also an only child (paternal grandfather). This probably explains a lot about my psyche right there. Many of you Psych 101 people probably have me all figured out just from that sentence alone. Three generations of only children...it’s a wonder I’m not a huge selfish navel gazer. Oh wait… I have the blog… which is the epitome of selfish navel gazing. Oh well.

My parents got divorced when I was five and I lived with Mom. Mom worked so I was left to my own devices every afternoon. Yes, I was a latch-key child, which also may explain a few things as well. But what the hell else was she supposed to do?

Anyway, one day my best friend Bernie and I spent the entire afternoon at my house building Lego™ artillery pieces. We’d then take turns “bombing” each other’s fortifications until it was time to rebuild. After a few rounds we realized that not only did we need more sturdy Lego fortifications (and we had Byzantine rules for what constituted a “gun” and what was merely decoration), but we also needed better bombs. We started out using small marbles, then escalated to larger marbles, then big ol’ hunks of Legos, then finally these really big, thick heavy Magic Markers. Those were the best. You could put spin on them and they’d skip over and between Bernie’s walls. And when you scored a hit the cap would also come flying off. It was great.

Except for the fact that Mom had just painted the walls. White. And not just any dumb old white, but this Aryan, pure-as-the-driven snow white that verily gleamed with any light source. Magic Markers with no caps versus freshly painted walls. A fight to the finish and I think we all know who was coming out on top in that brawl.

Mom walked in the door and saw the huge puddle of Legos on the floor, with Bernie and I set up on opposite ends of the room, gleefully tossing marbles, wads of Legos and Magic Markers across the living room. I think at the time I was hiding behind a chair, because occasionally you’d get tagged with an errant marble and the chair was much more solid than anything I could build out of Lego.

“WHAT. IS. GOING. ON. IN. HERE?” (Yes, there was a period after each of those words).

“Um.....”

Then you heard the sound of Bernie’s footsteps down the walk and scooting on home. Bernie was no fool.

“AND WHAT IS ON MY NEW WALLS?”

She marched straight into the kitchen, got a bucket and began scrubbing the living room walls with all her might. I began to pick up Legos morosely.

And then she said something I’d never heard her say. And I don’t think she’s ever said it since.

“Shit!”

Silence for a moment.

“This isn’t coming off.”

I didn’t even know that my Mother knew that word! I thought I’d have to teach it to her someday.

I learned something about being an only child that I hadn’t really realized. I didn’t get the blame for the whole marker-on-walls fiasco. Bernie did. Usually I got the blame for everything, since pretty much everything that was a kid type disaster was indeed my fault. No one else was around in the house to make the huge cereal mess that one time, was there? I was the only suspect in every single mystery. But not this time. This time I was obviously influenced by the evil Bernie, since I’d never do such a thing to those walls that Mom had worked so hard to paint. Sometimes as an only child you get a little too much benefit of the doubt I learned that day. Now, did I offer Bernie up as a sacrifice? No, I did not. Not really anyway. I didn’t blame him, but I also didn’t advocate for his cause, either. I was only ten, for Pete’s sake on a popsicle stick. That kind of magnanimity doesn’t come until one is much more mature, if at all. But I know for a fact that though Bernie was the first to throw a Magic Marker, I had the HUGE supply on my side of the room, so almost all the marks on the walls were from my tosses. So Bernie wasn’t allowed to play at my house unsupervised anymore. And I really wasn’t allowed to play at his place too much either. So that’s the trade off, I suppose.

Anyway, I was just staring at this “100 Super Colors” marker set sitting on our shelf and wondering about their aerodynamic properties. And wondering what ever happened to Bernie.

Sorry about the walls, Mom.

Jon scribbled this mess on 11/30/05 at 06:57 AM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

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