Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid…or…The Curious Case of the Dangling Boogie
When I was little, Sundays meant church.
Waking up meant fifteen minutes of feverish debate over whether or not to fake tummy troubles before getting dragged out of bed to dress for church. Breakfast meant barely having time to wolf down some pancakes before hustling out the door to get to church. And taking a ride meant sandwiching myself between my sisters in the back seat of the car, praying neither of them would play “stop hitting yourself” on the way to church.
I had to behave in church—no kicking my shoes at the little Chuckie kid down the aisle who’d stuck his tongue out at me, and no whistling during the choir’s ten-minute rendition of “Goin’ Up Yonder.” Sit still, be quiet, pay attention, and don’t do anything that’d get me a pinch or a “you’re gonna get it when you get home” look from my mom…or worse, my dad. All in all, the odds of me actually making it through an entire service without divine retribution were about 50/50 (30/70 if I hadn’t been able to finish my pancakes). The urge to do bad when everyone around you is preaching good is a powerful one; temptation is of the devil, and I spent every Sunday as Eve staring down at one fat, juicy apple.
The only things that kept me in check were promises of a McDonald’s ice cream cone if I didn’t act up or the chance that I might get to dip out of service and spend my two hours of incarceration in Sunday school. Compared to sitting through seat-rattling sermons about hellfire and brimstone, spending a couple of hours clapping along to songs about Father Abraham and his legion of latchkey kids or listening to stories about men getting upchucked out of seasick whales was a pretty good deal. Sometimes, if the day was really going my way, I might even get to build miniature arks out of stained popsicle sticks.
And I would get graham crackers and cherry Kool-Aid.
These particular treats were usually withheld until the end of service, dangled in front of us kids as bribes to keep us from running amok and turning the place into our own post-apocalyptic Eden. Carrots work for more than just horses if you add enough sugar to them. But on one particular Sunday, we hadn’t broken anything, torn anything up, or made anyone cry, so the classroom aides took their lives into their own hands and brought out the goodies earlier than usual.
Next to a soft serve cone, graham crackers and Kool-Aid was the stuff of dreams, so I sat in greedy excitement, folding and unfolding my paper napkin on the picnic table as I waited for the festivities to begin. When a small plate of brown, sugar-coated crackers and a cup of red punch was set in front of me, I could barely stop myself from snatching them up and doing my best impression of the Tasmanian devil. Instead, I closed my eyes in prayer, waiting for everyone else to be served. At the sound of the last paper plate being set down at the end of the table, the signal to chow down had arrived. Eyes opening, I grabbed at a graham cracker with one hand and snatched at the cup of punch with the other. But then I made the mistake of looking across the table into the face of the little girl on the other side.
And there it sat, perched in her nose, green and prickly, like some grotesque, prehistoric egg about to hatch.
My stomach lurched.
Transfixed, I stared in nauseous fascination, imagining that mutated cactus tumbling from the girl’s nose like a boulder dislodged in an avalanche and splashing into her cup. My imagination followed a sensory path to my mouth, and I could almost taste the blob dissolving into the cherry punch, turning its tart sweetness into a salty elixir of fruit and phlegm.
I looked down at my crumpled Graham cracker, appetite lost. I set the Kool-Aid back on the table. Thoughts flew around my mind, bouncing off one another as I wrestled with whether or not to say something to the girl. Would I embarrass her if I pointed it out? Would the other kids overhear and start to pick on her—turn her into the running joke of Sunday school? We’d made it through a whole morning without anyone crying; what if my words caused her to break the record?
The girl laughed and said something to the boy beside her as she crunched down on a cracker. My gaze was again drawn across the table.
Didn’t she feel it? She had to. And even if her nose was somehow anesthetized from the wall of snot and mucous smothering her nerve endings, there was no way in H-E-Double Hockey Sticks she could breathe with that thing erupting from her left nostril. Air wouldn’t get past it. It was a green, sticky cocklebur capturing oxygen like molasses catches flies.
My eyes dropped to my plate. My mouth twisted around itself.
“Is everything okay?” An aide stood above me, her hands balancing a plate of graham crackers against a sloshing cup of red juice.
I shot a quick glance at the girl, hoping her friend had told her about the alien life form clawing its way to freedom from the middle of her face.
He hadn’t.
I swallowed. “Mm-hmm,” I mumbled. I silently willed the aide to see the monstrosity on the other side of the table and attack it with a wad of Kleenex. If she eradicated it quickly enough, I could pretend it had never existed and try to erase its image from memory.
“Do you want some more punch?”
My mind screamed, Look at it!
The aide smiled and shifted the cup toward me. I shook my head. Giving me an indulgent wink, she walked away.
In the end, no, I didn’t say anything to the girl. And neither did anyone else. No one offered up a tissue or suggested she look in a mirror. Instead, we went on with our morning and let her walk away to be made fun of by some other group of kids—all because we were afraid of embarrassing her.
I should’ve told her she had something in her nose. Maybe it’s why I now make a point to let people know when they have something on their face. Makeup smudge? Random piece of hair stuck to an eyelash? If I see it, best believe you’re going to hear about it.
And don’t be mad when I point it out to you—be thankful. Be overcome with gratitude that I didn’t let you walk down the street with your skirt stuck in your panties or that I stopped you from smiling in someone’s face with that slab of meat jutting from your left molar. Just laugh and say thank you. Maybe even fire off a quick joke as you wipe the bird droppings from your hair.
After all, better to joke about the elephant in the room than be it.
FINAL NOTE: I never ate graham crackers with cherry Kool-Aid, again.
When I was little, Sundays meant church.
Waking up meant fifteen minutes of feverish debate over whether or not to fake tummy troubles before getting dragged out of bed to dress for church. Breakfast meant barely having time to wolf down some pancakes before hustling out the door to get to church. And taking a ride meant sandwiching myself between my sisters in the back seat of the car, praying neither of them would play “stop hitting yourself” on the way to church.
I had to behave in church—no kicking my shoes at the little Chuckie kid down the aisle who’d stuck his tongue out at me, and no whistling during the choir’s ten-minute rendition of “Goin’ Up Yonder.” Sit still, be quiet, pay attention, and don’t do anything that’d get me a pinch or a “you’re gonna get it when you get home” look from my mom…or worse, my dad. All in all, the odds of me actually making it through an entire service without divine retribution were about 50/50 (30/70 if I hadn’t been able to finish my pancakes). The urge to do bad when everyone around you is preaching good is a powerful one; temptation is of the devil, and I spent every Sunday as Eve staring down at one fat, juicy apple.
The only things that kept me in check were promises of a McDonald’s ice cream cone if I didn’t act up or the chance that I might get to dip out of service and spend my two hours of incarceration in Sunday school. Compared to sitting through seat-rattling sermons about hellfire and brimstone, spending a couple of hours clapping along to songs about Father Abraham and his legion of latchkey kids or listening to stories about men getting upchucked out of seasick whales was a pretty good deal. Sometimes, if the day was really going my way, I might even get to build miniature arks out of stained popsicle sticks.
And I would get graham crackers and cherry Kool-Aid.
These particular treats were usually withheld until the end of service, dangled in front of us kids as bribes to keep us from running amok and turning the place into our own post-apocalyptic Eden. Carrots work for more than just horses if you add enough sugar to them. But on one particular Sunday, we hadn’t broken anything, torn anything up, or made anyone cry, so the classroom aides took their lives into their own hands and brought out the goodies earlier than usual.
Next to a soft serve cone, graham crackers and Kool-Aid was the stuff of dreams, so I sat in greedy excitement, folding and unfolding my paper napkin on the picnic table as I waited for the festivities to begin. When a small plate of brown, sugar-coated crackers and a cup of red punch was set in front of me, I could barely stop myself from snatching them up and doing my best impression of the Tasmanian devil. Instead, I closed my eyes in prayer, waiting for everyone else to be served. At the sound of the last paper plate being set down at the end of the table, the signal to chow down had arrived. Eyes opening, I grabbed at a graham cracker with one hand and snatched at the cup of punch with the other. But then I made the mistake of looking across the table into the face of the little girl on the other side.
And there it sat, perched in her nose, green and prickly, like some grotesque, prehistoric egg about to hatch.
My stomach lurched.
Transfixed, I stared in nauseous fascination, imagining that mutated cactus tumbling from the girl’s nose like a boulder dislodged in an avalanche and splashing into her cup. My imagination followed a sensory path to my mouth, and I could almost taste the blob dissolving into the cherry punch, turning its tart sweetness into a salty elixir of fruit and phlegm.
I looked down at my crumpled Graham cracker, appetite lost. I set the Kool-Aid back on the table. Thoughts flew around my mind, bouncing off one another as I wrestled with whether or not to say something to the girl. Would I embarrass her if I pointed it out? Would the other kids overhear and start to pick on her—turn her into the running joke of Sunday school? We’d made it through a whole morning without anyone crying; what if my words caused her to break the record?
The girl laughed and said something to the boy beside her as she crunched down on a cracker. My gaze was again drawn across the table.
Didn’t she feel it? She had to. And even if her nose was somehow anesthetized from the wall of snot and mucous smothering her nerve endings, there was no way in H-E-Double Hockey Sticks she could breathe with that thing erupting from her left nostril. Air wouldn’t get past it. It was a green, sticky cocklebur capturing oxygen like molasses catches flies.
My eyes dropped to my plate. My mouth twisted around itself.
“Is everything okay?” An aide stood above me, her hands balancing a plate of graham crackers against a sloshing cup of red juice.
I shot a quick glance at the girl, hoping her friend had told her about the alien life form clawing its way to freedom from the middle of her face.
He hadn’t.
I swallowed. “Mm-hmm,” I mumbled. I silently willed the aide to see the monstrosity on the other side of the table and attack it with a wad of Kleenex. If she eradicated it quickly enough, I could pretend it had never existed and try to erase its image from memory.
“Do you want some more punch?”
My mind screamed, Look at it!
The aide smiled and shifted the cup toward me. I shook my head. Giving me an indulgent wink, she walked away.
In the end, no, I didn’t say anything to the girl. And neither did anyone else. No one offered up a tissue or suggested she look in a mirror. Instead, we went on with our morning and let her walk away to be made fun of by some other group of kids—all because we were afraid of embarrassing her.
I should’ve told her she had something in her nose. Maybe it’s why I now make a point to let people know when they have something on their face. Makeup smudge? Random piece of hair stuck to an eyelash? If I see it, best believe you’re going to hear about it.
And don’t be mad when I point it out to you—be thankful. Be overcome with gratitude that I didn’t let you walk down the street with your skirt stuck in your panties or that I stopped you from smiling in someone’s face with that slab of meat jutting from your left molar. Just laugh and say thank you. Maybe even fire off a quick joke as you wipe the bird droppings from your hair.
After all, better to joke about the elephant in the room than be it.
FINAL NOTE: I never ate graham crackers with cherry Kool-Aid, again.
When I was little, Sundays meant church.
Waking up meant fifteen minutes of feverish debate over whether or not to fake tummy troubles before getting dragged out of bed to dress for church. Breakfast meant barely having time to wolf down some pancakes before hustling out the door to get to church. And taking a ride meant sandwiching myself between my sisters in the back seat of the car, praying neither of them would play “stop hitting yourself” on the way to church.
I had to behave in church—no kicking my shoes at the little Chuckie kid down the aisle who’d stuck his tongue out at me, and no whistling during the choir’s ten-minute rendition of “Goin’ Up Yonder.” Sit still, be quiet, pay attention, and don’t do anything that’d get me a pinch or a “you’re gonna get it when you get home” look from my mom…or worse, my dad. All in all, the odds of me actually making it through an entire service without divine retribution were about 50/50 (30/70 if I hadn’t been able to finish my pancakes). The urge to do bad when everyone around you is preaching good is a powerful one; temptation is of the devil, and I spent every Sunday as Eve staring down at one fat, juicy apple.
The only things that kept me in check were promises of a McDonald’s ice cream cone if I didn’t act up or the chance that I might get to dip out of service and spend my two hours of incarceration in Sunday school. Compared to sitting through seat-rattling sermons about hellfire and brimstone, spending a couple of hours clapping along to songs about Father Abraham and his legion of latchkey kids or listening to stories about men getting upchucked out of seasick whales was a pretty good deal. Sometimes, if the day was really going my way, I might even get to build miniature arks out of stained popsicle sticks.
And I would get graham crackers and cherry Kool-Aid.
These particular treats were usually withheld until the end of service, dangled in front of us kids as bribes to keep us from running amok and turning the place into our own post-apocalyptic Eden. Carrots work for more than just horses if you add enough sugar to them. But on one particular Sunday, we hadn’t broken anything, torn anything up, or made anyone cry, so the classroom aides took their lives into their own hands and brought out the goodies earlier than usual.
Next to a soft serve cone, graham crackers and Kool-Aid was the stuff of dreams, so I sat in greedy excitement, folding and unfolding my paper napkin on the picnic table as I waited for the festivities to begin. When a small plate of brown, sugar-coated crackers and a cup of red punch was set in front of me, I could barely stop myself from snatching them up and doing my best impression of the Tasmanian devil. Instead, I closed my eyes in prayer, waiting for everyone else to be served. At the sound of the last paper plate being set down at the end of the table, the signal to chow down had arrived. Eyes opening, I grabbed at a graham cracker with one hand and snatched at the cup of punch with the other. But then I made the mistake of looking across the table into the face of the little girl on the other side.
And there it sat, perched in her nose, green and prickly, like some grotesque, prehistoric egg about to hatch.
My stomach lurched.
Transfixed, I stared in nauseous fascination, imagining that mutated cactus tumbling from the girl’s nose like a boulder dislodged in an avalanche and splashing into her cup. My imagination followed a sensory path to my mouth, and I could almost taste the blob dissolving into the cherry punch, turning its tart sweetness into a salty elixir of fruit and phlegm.
I looked down at my crumpled Graham cracker, appetite lost. I set the Kool-Aid back on the table. Thoughts flew around my mind, bouncing off one another as I wrestled with whether or not to say something to the girl. Would I embarrass her if I pointed it out? Would the other kids overhear and start to pick on her—turn her into the running joke of Sunday school? We’d made it through a whole morning without anyone crying; what if my words caused her to break the record?
The girl laughed and said something to the boy beside her as she crunched down on a cracker. My gaze was again drawn across the table.
Didn’t she feel it? She had to. And even if her nose was somehow anesthetized from the wall of snot and mucous smothering her nerve endings, there was no way in H-E-Double Hockey Sticks she could breathe with that thing erupting from her left nostril. Air wouldn’t get past it. It was a green, sticky cocklebur capturing oxygen like molasses catches flies.
My eyes dropped to my plate. My mouth twisted around itself.
“Is everything okay?” An aide stood above me, her hands balancing a plate of graham crackers against a sloshing cup of red juice.
I shot a quick glance at the girl, hoping her friend had told her about the alien life form clawing its way to freedom from the middle of her face.
He hadn’t.
I swallowed. “Mm-hmm,” I mumbled. I silently willed the aide to see the monstrosity on the other side of the table and attack it with a wad of Kleenex. If she eradicated it quickly enough, I could pretend it had never existed and try to erase its image from memory.
“Do you want some more punch?”
My mind screamed, Look at it!
The aide smiled and shifted the cup toward me. I shook my head. Giving me an indulgent wink, she walked away.
In the end, no, I didn’t say anything to the girl. And neither did anyone else. No one offered up a tissue or suggested she look in a mirror. Instead, we went on with our morning and let her walk away to be made fun of by some other group of kids—all because we were afraid of embarrassing her.
I should’ve told her she had something in her nose. Maybe it’s why I now make a point to let people know when they have something on their face. Makeup smudge? Random piece of hair stuck to an eyelash? If I see it, best believe you’re going to hear about it.
And don’t be mad when I point it out to you—be thankful. Be overcome with gratitude that I didn’t let you walk down the street with your skirt stuck in your panties or that I stopped you from smiling in someone’s face with that slab of meat jutting from your left molar. Just laugh and say thank you. Maybe even fire off a quick joke as you wipe the bird droppings from your hair.
After all, better to joke about the elephant in the room than be it.
FINAL NOTE: I never ate graham crackers with cherry Kool-Aid, again.
