Grandma, Aphids, and Other Things

I comb a room crowded with various family members, most of which I seem to see on the regular basis, searching for the vibrant blonde hair of my mom. The mouth-watering smell of stuffing and mashed potatoes is in the air, along with a subtle hint of freshly baked chicken. That’s the only upside to family get-togethers, the food.

When I was little, every time we went over to my Grandparent’s house, it usually meant one thing: some kind of family function. I hated them when I was a kid and I still hate them now, the family functions, that is. It always meant that I had to deal with the smell of old people and the hugs and kisses from random people claiming to be my second aunt twice removed or some bologna like that. It meant that I had to suffer through hearing boring stories from even more boring people. It meant that I didn’t get to steal Grandpa’s chair or mess with his hair or choose what we watched on TV. As a young child, all I wanted to do was go outside and play with my friends, not behave at Christmas dinner.

Oh, the bliss of childhood. I remember it like it was yesterday. Playing at the playground, trying to fish at the creek, picking berries and eating them straight from the tree. I remember the time when my mom told me to bring some home and wash them so I could pack them in my lunch. I grabbed my favorite big green bowl, the one I’d always use for popcorn, and ran down to the creek where the berry tree was and started picking away at every berry I could find. I hurried home with the bowl half full, eager to munch away at the delectable fruit. She took the bowl and poured the berries into a strainer and ran some cool water over them. However, this innocent action turned into something straight from some sick scary movie. I watched in horror as hundreds of little aphids scurried out from the berries, panicked by the sudden waterfall crashing over them and the berries. I thought I was going to puke. All this time I had been eating aphids! Yuk! But, as the stubborn child I was and will always be, I didn’t let a few bugs get in the way of a good snack. The next day I went right back down to that tree and ate some more berries, ignoring the fact that I was ingesting an entire family of aphids and their distant relatives.

Most of my childhood was spent like this: eating things I shouldn’t, doing things that I shouldn’t, breaking things that probably weren’t meant to be broken, but then hiding it or blaming it on the cat or my sister. All in all, I loved my childhood. I’d enjoy my days riding m scooter around the neighborhood or setting up lemonade stands, complete with employees that get paid and billboards. I’d stick big cardboard signs on people and have them walk around the neighborhood advertising my stand. It all worked out pretty nicely. I did the same with Pokémon cards. I actually got the ice cream man to buy quite a few cards for his son. A little entrepreneur was I. My mom encouraged my leadership, and thus I haven’t really changed much, in that aspect, since then. But, oh how I miss childhood. It really is true, we grow up too fast.