You know, when your kids are little, you worry about everything they might possibly be exposed to, but the fact is, you can never protect them from everything, and things will happen to them that you will probably never know about. Now that you young parents are good and scared, let me share this with you. K told me about this a couple of weeks ago. She is 22 years old.
In 1988, she was what? 4? And went to a lovely pre-school that her sister had gone to before her, and which both of them attended through kindergarten. Something or other on TV prompted her to remember that the day after the presidential election in 1988, her teacher -- Miss Marilyn, whose son at that time was at West Point, btw -- asked all the little kiddies who their parents had voted for yesterday. Everybody knew (or thought they did) and everybody told. And poor little K was the only one -- the only one! -- who said that her mommy and daddy had voted for Dukakis, and all the little Republican children in the room made fun of her.
Can you freaking believe this? One, that the woman had the balls to ask, and Two, that I had the only four-year-old Democrat in the room? What are the odds? I practically live in the national capitol of blue state America here. And Three, that this was the buried memory that took 18 years to come out?
I was telling the Howdy Doody story to K -- remember, the younger sister -- and as I was, I realized that the birthday present penalty was probably not imposed on me by parents, but was just big sister stuff that she pulled on me, as all big sisters do. (We little sisters have our own shtick.) I think maybe it was my mother's idea the first year, and then the Sibs took the ball and ran with it.
Then, this morning, while we were having pedis, I asked the Sibs what she remembered about it. She said that I was not punished at all for destroying her Howdy (which would now be worth a million on eBay), and that she just took my birthday presents because she wanted them. She says maybe she did say it was to pay her back for Howdy, but if she did, she made it up and it didn't come from Shirl and Jack. Just goes to show you. Anyway, she got the ultimate revenge when I was 11 and she was 16 and let me think she was going to take me to see the Beatles at Shea Stadium and then said no, she was just kidding. Anyway, we're even, and thank god, past that petty shit for 35 years or more.
My furnace is no longer leaking. The "Service Engine Soon" light that came on in my car yesterday -- the same car that was serviced on Monday -- went out today. My incision looks like it may require a return visit to Dr. Waxenbaum. And K got her official letter of acceptance to graduate school, although that wasn't really in question, because getting into grad school is not the same nightmare as getting into college, because already having your college degree kind of limits the applicant pool to those who are pretty much capable of doing the work. Even so, paperwork is nice. Lastly, for the benefit of Miss Kate, R got the same postcard you did. : <
I'm trying the new retirement counter again, so I hope you see it there. If not, it screwed things up and I had to pull it again. Let's give it a go.
