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to: http://couchsurfingtourist.blogspot.com/
Read it, love it, and best of all…..COMMENT ON IT!
Yes, that’s right, your favorite blog now has the ability for you to leave comments (after I read them and deem them worthy, of course).
See you there!
I bought a Valentine’s Day card for my mom last week. On the front, there’s a picture of Cupid in his little diaper, bow and quiver of arrows in hand standing on a cloud with his mom who is saying, “Here’s an extra-small sweatshirt if you get cold. Remember always point that arrow away from you. And I packed you a nice, heart-shaped baloney sandwich for lunch.”
The reason I bought this specific card is that Mom Z. actually used cookie cutters on my sandwiches when she packed my lunch. Pumpkins, Easter eggs, smiley faces, hearts, you name it. Why? Because it made eating a regular ol’ baloney sandwich more FUN.
My mom is the single greatest lunch maker on the planet.
When I think back to school lunches, I fondly remember the following:
Indirectly proportionate to my A+, 4-star lunches were Harve’s lunches, which paled in comparison to mine. I’d show up with my Popples (you remember them) lunchbox and matching thermos and Harve would show up with…..a full-size paper Laneco bag. In my lunchbox I’d have separate baggies for each item, my personalized napkin, and of course, my dessert.
Harve would dump her paper bag on the lunch table to find…a sandwich made of 2 heels of extra wheat bread, 2 slices of cheese (which is the ONLY item Harve doesn’t eat, literally any other food she’ll eat) and lettuce wrapped in a…..deli meat baggie. So essentially a lettuce sandwich, once the cheese was tossed.
To add insult to injury, at the bottom of the paper bag were 3 prunes.
Some days, she’d excitedly talk about leftovers that would be waiting for her in her locker: egg rolls, steak sandwiches, chili dogs. All at whatever balmy room temperature her locker was.
A bottomless pit while we were growing up, she was always hungry, so needless to say a lettuce sandwich and 3 prunes weren’t really going to cut it. Thankfully/Not thankfully, my mom packed me with more food than I should have eaten (and yet did, most of the time).
On days when Harve brought her lunch, I’d offer up 1 of my Ring Dings or my apples and cinnamon, or some of my peanut butter crackers because I knew she was still hungry. On days when Harve BOUGHT her lunch from the lunch ladies, she was happy as a clam. Stuff that most kids wouldn’t touch—roast beef or meatloaf, mashed potatoes with gravy that had a hint of green to it, green beans, corn—she ate it all and loved it. To this day, when she works as a teacher, she still buys the school lunch and STILL enjoys it.
But for me, nothing quite takes the cake like my mom’s lunches. Even lunches at home were fun because she’d make us “Happy Face Plates.” A paper plate with a face drawn on it, covered up with lunch to make another face. Pickles would get sliced in half and be used as lips, lettuce would be used as hair, radishes would be used as red cheeks, etc.
In recognition, I’d like to give the gold medal of lunchmaking to Mom Z. for her 20+ years of school lunch service. [sidenote: she STILL packs my dad’s lunch, so when he officially retires she should get a bronzed lunchbox or something]
Unlike my own parents, my best friend Harve’s parents were always traveling. Luckily for me, Harve and her siblings were allowed to bring a guest on most of these outings. And since she and I were almost scarily inseparable, I could guarantee myself a spot.
One of the yearly outings was to a place called the Cowtown Rodeo.
No, I’m not joking.
COWTOWN RODEO. Located in NEW JERSEY.
{I’ll wait while you digest that.}
It is a little over two hours away but when we were in the back of their minivan/Le Sabre listening to “Car Talk,” it felt like eons.
The first thing we’d do when we arrived was stop and pick up our tickets (so as to avoid the craziness of the line immediately before the rodeo) and set up seats on the bleachers. We’d tie blankets or trashbags to save our seats for later (kids were the first bench right up front, the adults were the last bench right in the back). Then…it was on to mass chaos — the flea market.
Now, for 10-year-old girls, this was the greatest thing ever. Our parents would give us $10 or $20 and say, “Go. Have fun.” We bought bulk sour watermelons. Glittery purses. A doll that talked and cried (and never seemed to quiet down — I’m talking to you, Harve). There were people haggling, a giant pair of underpants hanging over the $1 underpants bins, cowboy hats, cowboy belt buckles, and the jeans! Enough Lee and Wrangler jeans to outfit everyone in the place.
It was hot. It was loud. And I loved it.
The crowning glory of the flea market was their rotisserie chicken with seasoned potatoes. Every year Harve’s parents would buy it and Mrs. H would pull all the chicken off the bone and cut all the potatoes in half so we’d have enough to go around. It was smokey, peppery, salty, it was red-orange and is kind of giving me a food boner just thinking about it.
Once we’d feast, we’d check in at our hotel and swim for a few hours until getting dressed and heading to the main event: The Rodeo.
As I mentioned, the kids (me, Harve, Harve’s brother and guest, and for a while Harve’s cousins) sat right in front next to the chainlink fence. The appeal of sitting so close was that when broncos would buck or bulls would crash into the fence, you’d be showered with dirt. This was exciting stuff.
At the Cowtown Rodeo, they also have a band: Dave and the Wranglers. These guys have been around as long as I can remember and they play the same tunes every Saturday night — ber der der DING DINGA DING DING, DING DINGA DING DING. It’s hokey, it’s southern, and I wouldn’t change it a bit.
Like all rodeos, they have rodeo clowns who serve a dual purpose:
One year, they asked for volunteers to play a game before the rodeo started. Harve and I were terrified of being noticed, but her brother wasn’t and got picked along with 2 others.
With all eyes on them, the three contestants were blindfolded.
But wait, the rodeo clowns had sneakily dismissed the other contestants, leaving just Harve’s brother wearing a bandana in the middle of the arena. Why him? In his Izod golf shirt, pleated khakis, and loafers, this kid clearly was not one of the locals and stuck out like a…preppie at a rodeo.
And that’s when the real fun started. They had him eat a banana as fast as he could while dancing a jig in a circle. Thinking he was competing for a prize, his antics were as exaggerated as possible — high jumps, clicking his loafers together, the banana hurriedly chomped and chewed.
After a few minutes of this, with the entire crowd laughing, they had Harve’s brother remove his blindfold to reveal that he had in fact been competing against himself for the enjoyment of the entire rodeo audience.
A good sport, he laughed and rejoined us for the rest of the show, happy to have been literally at the center of everyone’s attention for a few minutes. What did he win? Probably just dirt in his loafers and a few fun memories.
As long as I can remember, I’ve had sleepovers with my friends.
The Days of Innocent Sleepovers
In kindergarten, it was mostly Michelle R. and Harve. Our parents would sign bus passes and permission slips (Mom Z. would say aloud, “Permission. P-E-R-M…is it two M’s?” nearly every week), bags would be packed, and Barbies would be played with. Harve could be counted on to leave at least one piece of clothing at my house, which my mom would find later as she did laundry. She’d hold up one of Harve’s socks and say, “Is this hers? Or one of your Cabbage Patch doll’s?” laughing at the mini-sizes of Harve’s clothing.
With our small house, if I had more than one friend sleepover we’d set up camp in the living room (much to my dad’s annoyance, I’m sure). I like to think we slept end to end like neatly paired shoes. Mom Z. has informed me it wasn’t quite so…and in fact, we looked more like a litter of puppies, all arms and legs unconsciously strewn on each other.
I vaguely remember playing “Girl Talk” with zit stickers and “Truth or Dare” at Ryan H’s house. I didn’t have any dark secrets, so I always took Dare. This led to me licking the entire length of a floor and putting my bra in the freezer (thanks for those suggestions, Alison A. So gross.).
By 8th grade, Harve and I had become seasoned sleepover veterans. My mom still wrote out my permission slips, insistent she could finally spell “permission.” I’d ask, exasperatedly, “Why don’t you just find another word for ‘permission’?” And she’d yell back, “BECAUSE. I am going to learn how to spell this damn word, that’s why!”
At my house, Harve and I had devised a system for who would get my bed and who would sleep in a nest of blankets and sleeping bags on the floor. I had an antique purse shaped like a box with two slips of paper in it. One person would shake the box, the other person would extract a slip. “1” stood for bed, “2” stood for floor. We’d devised the system because too often we’d argue over who got the bed. She’d argue that since it was MY house I should get the bed. And I’d argue that since SHE was the guest, SHE should get the bed.
Sidenote: I should mention that Harve and I have been friends for 27 years and have never had a fight. Yes, we’re that adorable.
The Sleepovers Ending in Boobies and Hangovers
In high school, it was more of the same, but a larger pool of people with whom to sleepover and with less Barbies and more teenager-y behavior. For New Year’s Eve one year, Deege had a giant sleepover and at midnight we went streaking through the neighborhood (you’re welcome, people of Parkside).
My freshman year in college was a year of continuous sleepovers. Becca, who lived in the room next door, would sleepover because her roommate on the bottom bunk would have sex and shake the bunkbed. Aimdog, who lived down the hall, would sleepover because she didn’t feel like walking back to her side of the building after a night of partying.
After hearing about our plight of not having a place to put these guests, my mom bought Spank and I two giant dog bed pillows, which we put end to end to create an impromptu bed.
Some of my most memorable sleepovers were at The Skunk House, the home of Homer and Kara (and sometimes Jones) in our college town. I was out of college for a few months and working my second “real” job, which just so happened to be located within walking distance of The Skunk House. There was a family of skunks living under their house and despite numerous attempts to eradicate them (humanely), the place fucking stank. Anything leather brought into The Skunk House would leave smelling to high heaven after the leather absorbed the scent. Unzipping an overnight bag would inevitably lead to gagging as all the clothes would have a hint of skunk in them.
It was at The Skunk House Escobar and I devised an ingenius plan. We thought if we stacked 2 airbeds, it would double the comfort. What we didn’t think about, was Esco getting off the airbeds to pee in the morning and catapulting me into the wood-paneled wall.
The History and Philosophy of Sleepovers
Maybe sleepovers are alluring because my sister had them and I was never invited. I was, however, encouraged to pop in once in a while and report back to my mom what was happening and once, even to bring back a sample of punch my mom had made ahead of time and my sister indubitably spiked.
Sidenote: my sister was held responsible for cleaning the vomit out of the carpet and sleeping bag due to Julie M. drinking said spiked punch.
Even before I had friends, my brother Johnny and I had sleepouts.
Since his room was in the basement, it was just different enough to warrant a big deal and an invitation. I’d bring my sleeping bag down to Johnny’s room and sleep on his floor while he slept high above me on his hand-me-down waterbed. In the dark, we’d play catch with a pair of his socks rolled into a ball — sailing through the air and hitting walls or each other.
We also camped out in the backyard together, always awoken by a menagerie of bird noises at 5 am. Once he spent an hour imitating a mourning dove, driving me further and further into fits of giggles, until Mom Z. had had enough and knocked on the side of our tent yelling, “HEY! ENOUGH YOU TWO!” which of course just sent us off into another round of laughter. To this day, I can’t hear the call of the mourning dove without smirking a little.
Once, he and I fell asleep in the car on the way home from my grandparents house and we begged our parents to let us sleep in the “way back” of our station wagon for the night. They did, despite the puzzlement of our neighbors, who must’ve shaken their heads at us tumbling out of the car with our sleeping bags at 7 am.
For Christmas one year, my parents gave all three kids air mattresses and I promptly used mine until it popped, then pilfered Gretchen’s and Johnny’s because for some unknown reason, neither of them continued with sleepovers after high school.
After college, my friends and I moved back to our hometowns or relocated, but it has always been an unsaid understanding that when someone comes to visit, the floor/bed/couch is always open and you are more than welcome to crash.
As we get older, friends offer guest rooms instead of futons, nurse newborns instead of doing shots, and hours are spent catching up over wine and board games rather than primping and dancing until wee hours at the club.
It’s funny though, because at the age of 31, I still think nothing of packing up my sleeping bag and seeing my friends in their jammies. In fact, I think that might be when lines of “acquaintance” turn to “friend”. Seeing people in their pajama bottoms, free of makeup, with glasses instead of contacts really bridges a level of friendship and invites people to be on another tier of closeness.
So to those who have ever seen me in my pjs, sporting my retainers and my overnight eye-firming cream, consider yourselves my closest friends and know that no matter how small my future homes are, you’re always welcome to crash at my house.
I was never very good at math. Alternatively, my brother graduated with a degree in chemical engineering and went on for a master’s degree in fuel science, so yeah, he’s pretty good at math.
When I was in about 4th grade, my dad noticed my math skills were lackluster and needed a boost. So he bought a math workbook from the book section in our local grocery store. Then he bought another one. Eventually, he had to start buying them at the local teachers’ supply store because we had exhausted the grocery store’s supply. And even when that wasn’t enough, for one whole summer vacation, I’d wake up and sit down for breakfast only to see a yellow. legal. tablet. Two to three pages of hand-scrawled math problems that my dad created while drinking his morning coffee.
And his excessive good parenting didn’t stop there.
For years, my parents would load all three of us up every Saturday to visit my grandparents who lived about 45 minutes away. My dad would pass a box to my brother, as sneakily as a high-roller palming the doorman a tip, and say, “Here. Practice with Heidi.” And my brother would be doomed to spend 45 minutes quizzing me on addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division flashcards in the back of the station wagon.
Now, aside from the fact that my brother is a supergenius, he’s also 5 years older than I am. So imagine a 14-year-old quizzing a 9-year-old on basic math when he’s doing high school, honors-level algebra. Yikes.
As if that wasn’t enough torture for either of us, my dad also noticed I couldn’t grasp the concept of counting money. Which meant…when we’d load up in the station wagon, he’d palm my brother some dollar bills and a handful of change and say, “Here. Practice making change with Heidi.”
After a few years and dozens of trips to Dra and Pop’s, thankfully I eventually got the hang of it.
Then I started bringing home unacceptable grades in social studies (a C-, if anyone is curious), which warranted long talks about how I wasn’t “reaching my potential.” Ironically enough, my sister is now a social studies TEACHER, so back in the day, I wasn’t getting any sympathy from my parents or sister about how hard social studies was either.
Fearing another dreadful family intervention, I attempted to take it in my own hands and try to study with the most patient person in the house.
I’d bring home my social studies book and, while my mom folded laundry, I’d whisper, “Mom? Can you help me study for my test tomorrow?”, hoping against hope that my dad in the next room wouldn’t overhear and step in.
And time after time, my mom would yell, “JOHN! Heidi needs help studying.”
Throwing me to the dogs, just like that.
And so, an hour of pure torture would start. My dad would find the chapter and start reading aloud. From the first word to the last word of the chapter, he’d read. Would I be taking copious notes? Suddenly absorbing information that previously hadn’t stuck in my head? No. I’d be counting the keys on our piano. Playing with the tassels on the rug. Noticing how many sentences it took before my dad cleared his throat in a serious of three eh-eh-HEM coughs.
I vividly remember looking longingly at my mom and her giant laundry piles, pleading with my eyes to make this stop. She’d wink and be off, free, walking around the house without being shackled to this stupid history book.
The worst part is that, inevitably, my dad would come to the end of the chapter and see the review questions.
I should note that unlike my dad, I don’t have a nearly-photographic memory. Hearing something or reading it once is never enough. I need to read, repeat, understand, and find meaning to what I’ve read. I need to use pneumonic devices and memory tricks to remember names/dates/places/terms. Alternately, if you ask me about a conversation we had 8 years ago, I can tell you what was said and what you were wearing. But that’s hardly helpful on a 4th grade social studies test.
So it would go that my dad would ask me a question, I’d stare dumbly like a goat, and after some insistent prodding, shrug my shoulders and say dejectedly, “I dunno.” Then my dad would say, “Heidi…I just READ IT TO YOU. ” Then he’d go back, reread the paragraph, I’d zone out again, and the cycle would continue until I’d end up crying and running to my room saying, “I DON’T KNOW, DAD!”
Years later, I asked my mom, a terrible student herself, about it and she said, “Oh Heidi! I had no idea how to study! To pick out the terms and ask you about them. To go through the questions at the end and find where they related to the text, that was completely beyond me. I’m so sorry. I’d hear you in the other room with dad and I’d just cringe because I couldn’t remember what he just read either!”
Luckily, spelling and English were my saving graces. I’d bring home my spelling words and ask my mom to review them with me, which she would. Looking back, I have to laugh because she’s an even worse speller than she is a student of social studies, so who knows how many I actually got right.
Moral of the story, try to have kids consecutively smarter than the last one so THEY can tutor each other. Or so that you think you’re just doing a really, really great job contributing to the gene pool.
About a year ago, I had strange chest pains anywhere from one to three times a day. Chest pain that would just come on, STAB! then go away. No rhyme or reason.
It had been going on for about a week or two when my best friend Harve, saw me clutch my chest and wince in pain for a few seconds when she declared my need for an ER visit and attempted to whisk me off to the nearest hospital.
But in typical Zengel style, I insisted everything was fine and that eventually it would just go away. In typical “I studied nursing in college” style, Harve insisted everything was not fine and that if it happened again during my visit, off we’d go.
The next morning, just as we were about to leave the house to pick up some delicious bagels, STAB!, once again. I tried to hide it, or pretend it was part of a really painful yawn, but to no avail. So, with a small pit stop at the local bagelry, off we went.
Now, one of the only other times I was in the ER was 20 years ago with Harve when she broke her arm during our 6th grade Halloween dance. She went as an 80s rockstar (complete with silver, tinsel wig, and garish makeup, a la the Misfits) and I went as a gypsy (complete with loud head scarves, garish makeup, and tons of jewelry).
As tears smeared her crazy makeup, Harve hobbled into the ER tenderly supporting the sling Mom Z. (always a chaperon) fashioned out of a Saltines box and a classmate’s mummy costume (shout out, Seth C.). Knowing how strange we must look to the other ER patients especially considering our Halloween dance was 2 weeks before the holiday, Harve and I found a way to laugh through her tears.
So, considering our first ER visit was so memorable, we figured our second ER visit together would be much more tame.
Right.
Armed with bagels, we sat in the ER waiting room awaiting triage, followed quickly by gowning up and awaiting some good ol’ doctoring.
This ER had an open floor plan — beds with curtains around them, everyone facing the nurses’ station (and other patients). The nurse who took my EKG was ultra nice and had a quirky sense of humor. I liked him immediately.
In between doctors stopping by to ask questions about my pain, the nurse would stop by and trade quips with us. Once he stopped by and saw that I was nearly finished with the bottle of apple juice I bought at the bagel place earlier and a look of pure mischief passed over his face.
He asked if he could steal some and when I agreed, he hurriedly poured a little into a urine sample cup. With a wink, he set off for the nurses’ station.
He chatted with them for a few seconds, raising up the urine sample cup so all could see, then started to drink from it. Harve and I stifled laughter as some of the other patients looked on horrified as the nurses shouted disgusted exclamations.
It only lasted a few minutes until he confessed what was in the cup, but the ruse got everyone in the ER laughing, including the people on the other side of my “privacy curtain” who congratulated us in playing a part in it.
Sidenote: I am fine. Still have no idea what the pain was caused from, but sure enough it did just go away. Mostly.
Last weekend my car was broken into.
Let me preface this story by saying none of my former cars, nor my parents’ cars, have been broken into. Why? Because in the history of the Zengels, we’ve driven shitty cars. Turns out, criminals don’t want to break into shitty cars, they tend to break into either really common cars (Toyota Camry) or top of the line cars.
I drive a Toyota Matrix. A simple hatchback with plenty of dings and dents that let people know that my car is now a city car. When I park in sketchy areas, I’m not afraid that someone’s going to steal my car because it’s so run-of-the-mill. I WAS afraid of having my GPS or XM radio stolen because those are typical hot ticket items.
A friend of mine grew up in Center City Philly and regaled me with stories about not-so-typical hot ticket items. For example, she kept her EZ Pass tag in her glove compartment because thieves were known to break into a car and steal the pass from windshield. She also kept her registration sticker (that typically would go on her license plate) in her glove compartment because thieves had been known to use wire cutters and literally cut her neighbors’ license plates, take the stickers and glue them onto their own plates (thus not having to pay the registration fee when theirs expired).
Growing up in a small town where my parents rarely locked our cars, it was kind of a shock to the system when my Gertie the Matrix had been ravaged.
The tip-off that my car had been broken into was my GPS/cell phone charger dock laying on the ground outside of the driver’s door. Also, my CDs, papers, etc. were strewn about the floor on the passenger’s side. [For those out there who keep your car a mess, maybe you’re actually a deterrent for B&Es and they think your car has already been broken into.]
Panic set in.
I saw that my XM radio dock had been ripped from the dashboard where it had been GORILLA glued. This is the stuff you see in commercials where a guy’s construction hat is glued to a beam and holds him up. I mean, kudos to you, thief. You must work out in order to be able to rip that adhesive bond.
But it wasn’t stolen, merely dangling by the wires that are threaded through the dashboard.
Surely then, they must have stolen the faceplate of the XM radio?
But a quick inspection to its hiding spot told me it was still safe and sound.
Since my GPS is broken and on Justin’s table awaiting his unfound fixit skills, and my phone—which doubles as my GPS—was in the house, there wasn’t any GPS the thief(ves) could steal. And since we already found the cradle for the phone, that wasn’t stolen, either.
Justin and I were puzzled.
XM dock. XM faceplate. GPS dock. check, check, check.
My windows hadn’t been broken. It didn’t appear that any of my CDs were stolen. Even an errant credit card I had stashed for emergencies hadn’t been found or stolen (thankfully — now I carry it with me).
So…the only thing I could note that was missing was…a jar of change that I had recently emptied of quarters to vacuum my car. Which left…about $0.47 in nickels and dimes.
Some advice to the thief — maybe stick to the high-end cars rather than the sensible ones. Because frankly, if I had the money for a high-end car, I would probably have more than $0.47 in my change jar.
As Justin said, it really was a best-case scenario for someone breaking into my car. Nothing was really damaged or stolen, and on the upside, unlike my friend in Philly who had this happen to her, there wasn’t a homeless person sleeping in the back of my car curled up on my sleeping bag.
When I was a wee tot, I heard mumblings about Bring Your Daughter to Work Day. And I remember thinking, “Yay! I’m going to get to see where Dad works!”
Lo and behold, I did not.
When I asked, in my very cutest Cindy-Lou-Who voice, why I couldn’t accompany him, my dad said it wasn’t safe. Then rambled on about the kind of place he worked in and how there were all these big machines and if people aren’t careful they sometimes lose fingers or get hair caught in gears.Terrifying? Maybe. But exciting? Absolutely. Just the kind of loud, noisy, fast-paced environment a kid would LOVE to see.
See, my dad was a safety supervisor of the Mobil Chemical warehouse. They made and shipped Styrofoam cups, plates, bowls, and garbage bags. Hence why my parents always had a surplus of such items (until I hit high school and scolded them repeatedly for all the Styrofoam).
Unfortunately, for a six-year-old girl, this makes no sense. I knew what Mobil was because we often gassed up our station wagon there. And while I didn’t know what a warehouse was, I knew what a GREENhouse was. Close enough, right?
So when I was asked in school what my daddy did, I said:
“He works at a Mobil Gas Station greenhouse. And he has to wear steel-tipped boots.”
I can only imagine the look of confusion on the teacher’s face.
This morning, after finding yet another $40 parking ticket on my windshield, I thought the worst part of my morning commute was over. But no.
As I turned the corner and proceeded to drive up the block, I squinted to see something in the road. Keep in mind, this was at 5:15 am en route to my spin class.
I was about to honk and go around the vehicle in the middle of the road when I realized there was a person there, waving me to slow down. Not just anyone, a SWAT team member in full gear. Um, ok, Mr. SWAT, maybe not wear all black if you’re going to direct traffic during whatever kind of bust this is. Also, sure, I feel like maybe you have the authority to make me stop. And break my neck, if need be.
As I was sitting there, I realize there was an A-TEAM-esque armored van in front of me. And like ants erupting from an anthill, there were SWAT team members pouring out of the armored vehicle with AK-47s, dressed all in black. With my mouth agape, I sat wondering, “Really? Is this really happening right now?” And then I saw the final piece of the puzzle: 2 battering rams.
After all the SWAT team members had moved up the alley, I proceeded to get the hell out of Dodge. While exiting speedily, yet cautiously, I notice some Boston locals at the Dunkin’ Donuts, sipping their brew, leaning on fences and watching the drama unfold. Just another day here in South Boston. No big deal, just like watching the Fourth of July parade.
The best part is that as I was driving away, I was thinking, “Yes, drive away. For safety’s sake. Even though you kind of want to see what happens. If you get shot by random gun fire in a shoot-off, Safety Man is going to be so mad!”
Typical for any third child, I grew up playing with a lot of hand-me-down toys and wearing a lot of hand-me-down clothes. Regardless that some of those hand-me-downs were my brother’s. So instead of a cutesy pink and purple bike that I longed for, I had a boy’s Huffy stunt bike.
But long before the stunt bike, I had a black Big Wheel tricycle that used to be his. BLACK. I had long blonde hair, ribbons, and I was driving a boy’s Big Wheel around town like nobody’s business.
One summer day, happily playing in the yard, I parked my Big Wheel next to the dump (aka, the garbage cans at the top of our yard) and ran off to do God-knows-what.
When I returned, the scary garbagemen and their thundering trash eating machine were coming up the block and were nearly at my house.
Paralyzation kicked in. I was frozen behind some shrubbery as I watched them grab my only means of transportation, my symbol of freedom, and toss it in the mouth of putrification.
As they drove on to the next house, I continued to stand there, immobile, icy sweat forming on my five-year-old skin. With my tricycle gone, I knew I would have to face the only thing meaner and more intimidating than cigar-chewing, stain-mottled garbagemen (ok, maybe they weren’t, but this is how I remember it).
My dad.
Now, to anyone who has met my dad in the past 10 years, he seems like an easy-going retiree intent to spoil his grandchildren with candy corn, jellybeans, and M&M’s pulled from his pockets.
But growing up with him was an entirely different story. In short, my siblings and I were scared of him. Loud, angry tangents about lying politicians, curse words sprinkled through dinner table diatribes about how construction workers were useless, union workers were overpaid, “Pennsi” drivers (their house borders NJ and PA) were the bain of his existence, and too many others to count.
But there were recurring themes — honesty and hard work.
So when a toy that he spent hard-earned money on was left out carelessly next to the garbage and taken away with the trash, I dreaded the tongue-lashing, the “Dammit, Heidi!” that would come with it.
But I plucked up my courage, peeked my tear-stained face around the ferns next to our house, and confessed my sins in a torrent of apologies and sobs.
To this day, I’m not sure if my dad was already starting to soften, or if he was just so taken aback by one of his kids seeking solace and appeasement for their grievous behavior.
Whatever the case, my dad gave me a few “there-there’s” and before the sun went down that day…
I had a brand new Cabbage Patch Big Wheel.
It was PINK. It was PURPLE. It was covered in FLOWERS.
And I loved that damn bike until my knees smashed against the handlebars.
My siblings still bring it up. “The day Heidi was dumb enough to leave her bike out for the garbagemen and Dad went out and bought her a brand new one.”
Sometimes being the youngest has its advantages, like owning a piece of my dad’s tender little Grinchy heart.
