My cousin's son Attila has what I would call "Green Guilt". Every time he receives any type of food or gift that has packaging, he immediately asks, "Is this recyclable?"On our last family trip to "Bible Camp", my mother threw a plastic bottle into the garbage can in our room.
"Auntie, Auntie!" Attila yelled, pointing at the trash."We need to put this in the recycling bin OUTSIDE!"
"Nope, I do not recycle," said my mother.
"But you have to put it so we don't pollute Mother Earth," he whined.
"Eh, I don't feel like it."
"But why noooooot?" He pleaded with his big blue eyes.
"Because I am lazy," she laughed.
"Okay, then I can go outside and put it in the bin!"
Her expression changed from amusement to horror. "NOOOO!" she screamed. "You can't go recycle, somevon will steal you!"
Don't worry, I fished it out of the garbage can later and took him to recycle it. I'm trying to keep his childhood scars to a minimum.
Photo by Sanja Gjenero
When I was a freshman in college, I received an angry phone call from my mother.
"Vhat's da hstory vit dis letter from dah school! You’re in big-big trouble!"
“What are you talking about? What letter?”
“Are you on drugs, Stephie? I saw dis special on 20/20 dat all dah college kids are doing dah Mary Hanna in dah voods!” she screamed. “You vouldn’t go into dah voods, vould you?”
(Editor’s note: Say that 10-times fast!)
“Anyu, it’s probably a mistake, Read me the letter.”
“'Dear Mrs. Yuh'-Ha, ‘Mrs’. Dey tink I’m still married to your asshole fodder.”
“Anyu, stop changing the subject.”
“Ok. ‘Ve are calling it to your attention dat your dodder is….’ I can’t belief you are doink dis to me, Stephie, vhat are the people at church gonna tink?”
“MOM. You’re overreacting. Just read it out loud to me so I can see what happened.”
“Okay. 'Dear…Dear Mrs. Ok. So. Ve are calling it to your attention dat your dodder is on dah Dean’s List.’ You see! He put you on his list! How can you DO this to me, Stephanie?”
“Wait…the Dean’s List? That’s a good thing.”
“Don’t lie to me! Dis vill go on your permanent record!”
“Hey, did...
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One morning in first grade, the principal made an important announcement. “There is a severe head lice epidemic,” he grumbled through the loudspeaker. “The nurse will call classrooms in one at a time tomorrow to check for head lice.”
Kelly, the pig-tailed girl that hated my guts from the moment she saw me in kindergarten, turned and gave me an evil smile, “Maybe when they’re checking for lice, the nurse will also see that Stephanie has the COOOTIES!” she snarled.
The entire class laughed. The teacher shushed everyone to listen to the rest of the morning announcements.
I looked over at my friend, Alia, who glanced at me sympathetically. Alia and I knew each other from our special ESL (English as a Second Language) classes. Kelly frequently picked on Alia as well for wearing a religious head covering to school, so we bonded through the shared torment.
“Alia,” I whispered. “Do you tink I have dah cooties?”
She shrugged, “I heard Jimmy B. got dah cooties so dey sent him away.”
“Do you know vhat cooties are?” I asked.
“I dunno,” she replied. “But dey sound yucky!”
Samantha, a girl that claimed to know everything about a whole lot...
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