Flowers, Witches and Other Thoughts

I was reflecting the other day, but I had to get ready for work, so I left the mirror and started thinking. That’s not always the best thing to do, think.

My wife is always asking me out of the blue, “So what do you think?” I’ve learned that it’s not always a good idea to tell her. It usually ends up with her crying and me feeling like scum; not that the thoughts are bad. It just gets her talking and pretty soon I’m in trouble for one reason or another.

For instance, I was remembering a flower show we used to hold in elementary school years ago. If I were to tell her I was thinking about that, pretty soon she’d be saying things like, “So who did you bring your flowers for?”. You see what I mean. The problem is we went to the same elementary school and grew up with the same people, so any mention of any person leads her to wonder if I’m having an old fling come back. The fact I haven’t seen anybody we grew up with since high school doesn’t matter. I have learned though most people change so much after 30 plus years you don’t recognized them anyway.

It was a pretty neat thing, the flower show. We all brought our entries and the school people put them in the gymnasium on bleachers and tables and stuff. We would get to get out of class and go walk through them all. Hay fever aside it was really quite fun, walking the aisles with your arms folded so you wouldn’t touch anything, trying to find your own floral wonder, and of course you had to admire your friend’s entry. By then the judges made their decisions. You could see if you won a ribbon. I won a red 2nd place ribbon once. The closest I ever got to being somebody in elementary school.

There was an assembly at the end of the week and they called you up to the stage to get your ribbon. This wasn’t just any old assembly either because the parents got to come too. Everyone knew it was the Mom’s who put the arrangements together, but we pretended we did it (trust me Moms can be just as bad as Dads and Pinewood Derby cars). So the moms who came were just as enthusiastic with the awards ceremony.

I have no idea what I took that won 2nd place, but I do remember one particularly embarrassing year. My mother made me take weeds. She told me to go out in the field behind our house and pick weeds. For heaven’s sakes this is a flower show, not a weed show. I thought you tried to get rid of weeds out of the flower beds. How humiliating. I don’t remember if I went ahead and entered the weeds or not. For all I know they won second place. Usually I took Irises. We had a ton of those (talk about weeds). I hated them. I still do.

Another time my mother, who I swear was on a “ruin the kid’s life kick” (this had to be the same year as the weeds), for Halloween I had to wear a costume to school. My mother made me go as a witch. A witch! How humiliating is that to a 3rd grade boy? She explained the idea is to be something different so that no one knows who you are. I bought it. So I wore it. Things would have been just fine until they made you stand up and take off your mask and tell everyone what you were. They all laughed, especially the boys who were cool. They were Zorro and Lone Ranger and Superman and cool things. I was a witch. I wanted someone to throw water at me so I would melt right then and there. My mom thought it was funny. I didn’t dare tell her what I was thinking. It must have started about then. I wonder if Obama ever had to dress up as a witch. It could explain a few things.