Water Lilly Alley

Instructions

Back in 1958 or so, we didn’t have babysitters, nannies, or maids. We had ‘Instructions’  For instance, when my mom had to go out to the market, or to run mom chores we kids would be left home alone. Me being the oldest, 8, I was the one to be given ‘The Instructions’  

-         -Alvie, while I’m out keep an and eye on your brother and sister, no fighting, and don’t use the stove, stay out of the fridge, you don’t need to be eating anything, I don’t want you choking again, especially if no one is here. Don’t be using your slingshot to be shooting birds from your bedroom window, and most of all: DO not, do not open the door for anyone other than me.  Got it?

-         -Yes,

-        -What did I say?

-        -No Fighting, don’t use the stove, stay out of the fridge, no eating, no slingshot stuff and don’t open the door for anyone?

-        -Ok, back in an hour.

<One hour later.>

-      (knock-knock)

-        -Who is it?

-        -It’s me, mom, open the door.

-        -How do I know it’s you?

-        - God damn it, open the door or when I get in there I will knock you into next Tuesday.

-        - John, check the back door, I don’t know who it is but they have the evil power of time travel.

-        - Dee, go lock all the windows, this could be dangerous.

-         -  Alvie, open the door.

-        - How do I know you’re who you say you are?

-        - Open the God damn door now!

-        - Ok but first you will have to answer a few questions.

-        - What did we have for breakfast?

-        - Don’t be funny, you had oatmeal and toast, Johnny had a bowl of Quisps and Dee had peaches, now open the fucking door.

-        - Damn, they got mom, I think they sucked the morning stuff out of her brain and sent out one of their chief body pods to kill, roast and eat us. 

-        - Really, what are we going to do Alvie?

<Loud banging on the door>

-  The three of you are going to get an ass beating if you don’t open this door now.

<Johnny and Dee peeking out from the living room curtains>

-        - Alvie, its getting mad, the face is turning red, what are we going to do?

-        - Don’t worry, I think it’s going into its huff and puff skills, but the house is cinder block so we don’t have anything to worry about right now, but, we need to get a plan in place.

-        - Like what?

-        - I don’t know, let me think.

<banging getting louder>

-        - Ok, turn the stove on, go get my slingshot, open the fridge and get all the choking stuff out.

-        - What is choking stuff?

-        - I don’t know, get chunk stuff out.

-        - Should we get the marmalade out, remember when you choked on the little orange things in the jelly?

-        - Yes, get the marmalade and also a few orbs so that we can ultra-force project the orange blast units.

-        - Ok, Johnny, smear some marmalade on one of the Brussels sprouts

-        - Dee, hand me my slingshot.

-        - Ok, on the count of three, Dee, open the door, I will have only one shot. Our only hope is that I can launch the orange globe of death directly into the mouth of whatever it is. 

-       - God be with us,

-        - 1…, 2…   

Ariance and Me.

‘Moms’ unlike jobs, everyone has one, or had one. Good or bad, you could not have arrived here otherwise. Even Jesus had a mother and although she was all Gucci and such and didn’t get pregnant by the conventional wet, sticky and messy method that we all indulge in so feverishly she still had to change a few nappies in her time.

My point being: Some moms are great and wise and some not. While some bathed their children in love and kindness others would believe that kids just came about from nothing more than a serious bout of bloating.

I think we will talk about the latter.

So, here I am about to order a cup of frozen yogurt at our local Penguin’s Frozen Yogurt Emporium and in comes two women, one apparently a mom with her two-year-old kid. Two-years old being a generous guess on my behalf. And the kid from what I could figure out… had a vocabulary of three words: "wah’, ‘gawgoogi’ and ‘that-that’… That-that being the predominant word of choice. So of course mommy does the frozen yogurt order:

Mommy: Ariance, what would you like honey?

Ariance: Pointing… "That-that"

Mommy to attendant: Ok, Ariance would like a small cup of double fudge cappuccino frozen yogurt.

Attendant: Would you like a topping with that?

Note: Topping – singular.

Mommy: Yes, rainbow sprinkles, M & M’s, gummy bears and a spoon of Fruit Loops, oh are those Oreo crumbs? Dust the top with Oreo crumbs please.

This all on a four-ounce cup of caffeine laden yogurt. Whereas upon receiving the sub-zero sugar delight –which by the way from by vantage point looked the color of a dead rodent - mom begins spooning the cold treasure into the child’s mouth and all the while moaning for the benefit of all still in line… yummmmmmm.

I guess she was hoping to sugar up the kid into increasing its vocabulary by diner time.

AND

That my friend by all manor or measure, simply put, is child abuse… is it any wonder that being 12 today is the new 22?

Hell, back when I was a kid we didn’t have toppings in fact, we didn’t even have frozen yogurt. We had Foster Freeze: A soft serve cone dipped into a batch of hot fudge that hardened into a protective intimidating chocolaty shell. Which basically meant you had to create an entry point into the barrier in order to suck out the ice cream. There was no licking a Foster Freeze chocolate dipped cone. And once inside, you could only mine the distance of your tongue. Or for a backup option you could always root around with your finger but this required turning the cone sideways and more than not the entire cream crammed shell would end up in your lap or worse… on the ground. Which automatically locked in the three-minute rule that ‘ahem’ doesn’t necessarily work well with ice cream or other items that go "splat’ when landing.

And unlike Penguin’s Frozen Yogurt Emporium it was not every week that we were treated to Foster Freeze. No, that was when we were "Good" Good meaning, none of us kids were injured in an early evening rock fight that week, didn’t fall from the top level of the monkey bars at school and break a bone or worse yet, break someone else’s bone. Didn’t take the wrong bus home from school or while heating a tortilla on the stove didn’t mistakenly turn the burner up on the pressure cooker. Did not lie when blood or sharp objects were involved in any given situation. Did not practice Three Stooges social techniques on younger siblings. Drank from the water hose instead of coming into the house for a glass of water when Uncle Louie came for an afternoon visit.

That was being good and being good of course meant, ice cream and ice cream was so much more fun than rabbit hunting.

And that boys and girls will be our topic for tomorrow.

Note: Foster Freeze is still around today but the chocolate they use for dipping is of a soft nature that blends into the soft-serve as you eat it. Like polio good soft-serve protective chocolate is a thing of the past. What a shame.

School photo of yours truly taken sometime in the late 50's - yeah, yeah, I know.