I was driving a light blue minivan down a lonely gravel road, early one morning this summer, at a rate of approximately 56 mph. I was on my way to pick strawberries for a local strawberry patch, and I wasn't feeling overly enthused about the idea. I was tired of picking strawberries. You probably would have been, too, if you'd been doing it, in the blistering sun and pouring rain, for 5-7 hours every day for nearly three weeks. It's not the worst thing in the world (malaria and typhoid fever are worse), but it wasn't exactly at the top of my List of Favorite Things to Do on a Rainy Thursday Morning. I was trying to cheer myself up by listening to the radio, rolling the windows halfway down, and taking the humps on the gravel road without slowing down; and then I noticed a bug crawling around on the inside of my window. And I thought to myself, "What an odd bug." Because it was. It looked sort of like a rather flat tick, with somewhat larger legs, and long, graceful antennae. A "Great American Tick-alope", according to my slightly eccentric, but nevertheless clever and charming, sister Camille. (That probably won't make any sense unless you've seen the Pixar short-story-film thing that comes before The Incredibles. I think it's called "Boundin" or something like that. Pretty cute.)
Anyway, I was thinking about this bug (and trying not to go off the road while I watched it crawl hither, thither, and yon), and it occurred to me what a grand adventure it must be having, in a small, buggy kind of way. Imagine being half an inch long, and finding yourself plastered to the inside of the window of a van hurtling recklessly down a rather bumpy road. And this particular fellow still had enough energy and courage left to go exploring on this speeding sheet of transparency. I admired his pluck.
It made me think about the things we miss when we live too much on the safe side. When we slather ourselves in sunscreen, keep our feet carefully on the sidewalk, and always follow the recipe. Sometimes I like to take off my shades, even when the sun is shining in all its painful brilliance; just so my eyes can experience life "all the way". Sometimes I'd rather turn off the AC and roll down all the car windows instead, whatever havoc it will doubtless wreak on my hair; just because.
I know, they're little things. But I've never been to Cuba or ridden a motorcycle, and I don't live near any roller coasters; so I get my thrills when and where I can.
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Later that afternoon I was playing my cello, and my baby brother was hollering in his crib. At first he contented himself with making loud, squalling sounds like a tornado siren or a small fighter jet coming in for a landing. Eventually, however, I noticed he was more and more consistently yelling, "Neen! Neen!". That's my name. Probably he had started hearing cello-ish noises and deduced that I was ignoring him. (For the record, I wasn't precisely ignoring him. I was going to get him up....my plan just wasn't quite as instantaneous as his.) So I went in and turned off the box fan that's supposed to keep the sleeping child from hearing the wakeful noises that tend to permeate the rest of the house (like telephones and cellos), then went over to have a chat with my smallest sibling.
"Hallo, Beebee," I cooed, "Why are you screeching like that? You sound like a screech owl...a baby screech owl."
(People always say silly things to babies, small children, and animals. I can't explain it, but I do it, too.)
Sam babbled something incoherent in reply, and bounced impatiently up and down in his crib. I am fluent in Sammish, and I knew that this should be approximately translated, "Get me out of this death trap, you mean girl. I want some pretzels." I was in a benevolent mood, so I obliged.
"You want out of bed?" I asked sweetly, "Come here, then, baby. But why were you screeching so much before? You never told me."
"Owie," said Sam, and he stuck his thumb in my mouth. That would be Sammish for "Kiss it".
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consider that this day ne'er dawns again. ~dante
3 comments:
I am convinced that bugs are some of the bravest animals on the planet, but some days they carry it too far. It is just foolhardiness the way that they, when particularly bored, line up on the road to play "chicken" with all the oncoming cars. They have no fear, but they also have no respect. Perhaps there is not room enough in their little heads for both. Sometimes I wonder if they even understand the concept of a transparent object.
As for younger siblings, mine are no longer small and cute, and if I tried to talk to them as I would a baby, they would probably deck me.
P.S. Just so you know, there actually is such a thing as a Jackalope. It is a cross between a jackrabbit and an antelope. They exist generally in the Rocky Mountain West and primarily in and around Wyoming. They are so rare that people are begining to believe that they, along with the unicorn and the leviathan, do not exist.
Yes, and the tragic part of it is how they never seem to learn from their mistakes. One would think that, after observing so vast an array of their fellow insects plastered all over the windshields of every car in sight, they might begin to re-think the wisdom of their little game. But nay--I am afraid that, as long as there are bugs and cars, there will be bugs plastered on cars.
Probably, then, it would be prudent to refrain from addressing your particular siblings in the childish manner being discussed. No use picking fights over matters of dialect.
I saw a Jackalope once. It was being hunted, poor thing, by a large, snaky-looking creature from the Loch Ness region of Scotland...which I promptly shot. Hence the rumors of that particular animal's non-existence.
As for unicorns...they quite obviously exist:
http://www.credenda.org/issues/12-2adullam.php
(third section down)
Hm, I hadn't read this one before. I must've only ever read part two, or what ever it was...it had 'breezes' attached to the end.
Good ol' Sam...
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