Ahhh...Memories [10.23.08]

It always surprises me how much I remind myself of my mother. I was sitting in my friend's dorm room, watching a "where are they now" show about one-hit wonders from the nineties. Of course, every commercial break would spark a conversation about the past. I felt just like my mom when she bumps into an old classmate at the grocery store. In no time at all, we were cackling about stirrup pants, scrunchies, and the fact that our middle school teachers wore an immense amount of makeup. Like it always does, an embarrassing story finally found its way into our conversation. My friend recounted the tale of her fated field trip. At one point before hitting the road, all of the children were instructed to use the bathroom before loading up the school bus. Unfortunately, this certain field trip offered an outhouse, but that was not even the best part. Once in the outhouse, my friend completely the task at hand, and then noticed that her overalls were not hanging outside the bowl, but were instead dangling inside it. "What did you do?", I asked her. She hesitated, and then replied with, "The only thing I could do!" Apparently, she just snapped her wet overalls back together, put on her coat, and loaded up the school bus with the rest of her classmates. Immediately after the conclusion of the story, she did what most people do. She realized the unfortunate truth of the permanence of words. Once her story was said, the words were invisibly floating around the room, similar to the bits of Mike Tv's chocolate bar in Willy Wonka. For her to grab them and shove them back into her mouth was completely out of the question.