Once Upon a Time: True Stories of an Aspiring Writer

BONUS Chapter 31: A Year in the Life

A brief guide to the life of me.

New Year's Eve/Day

Until we got older, staying up late meaning staying up closer to ten. We'd set off crackers, drink sparkling cider, and party. This was before the days before firework manners went off the radar, when people actually stopped setting them off at a reasonable hour. Later, usually Kelly would be at a party, and Emily and I would be home with our parents eating chocolate fondue. Um. Happy New Year?

The following day, we'd measure ourselves on a pole in our basement. Talk about starting the new year off feeling inadequate—Kelly was already towering pretty far over me, and Emily was getting there too. Then we'd head off to eat our Christmas gingerbread house, the best part of all. New Year's Day became happy again.

Valentine's Day

The best part was doing the card exchange at school and seeing what goodies you got. Whether it was candy hearts, Dove chocolates, or the standard candy pops that came with the valentines, it was always super fun to go through them. Then you'd go through them again on the bus ride home and gorge yourself on candy.

The only issue was when a fifth-grade classmate collected my Harry Potter valentines from classmates. I was conflicted. Should I be sad or angry that other classmates were so willing to give them up? Or should I be excited that she loved it so much that she wanted more?

The one moment I can remember most about those parties, though, was a classmate interacting with a banner ad on the computer in third grade. It was one of those "hit the duck and win a big prize!!" type things. When Max hit the duck, everyone was thrilled. Echoes of "Max hit the duck!" were heard for a while. Whatever spammy "prize" he got, I'm not sure he really won. But I was fine with my candy jackpot, personally.

Valentine's Day chocolate is good no matter how old you are...or how old it is. Sometime in college, I was cleaning out my closet when I found an old homework journal from February of first grade. There was a chocolate ladybug taped to the inside of it from Mrs. Compson. So I did whatever anyone in that situation would do: I ate it. It was a little musty, but it was clearly chocolate. Besides, it was in a shiny foil wrapper. Nothing wrapped in shiny foil tastes bad.

St. Patrick's Day

We did what everyone else did. We wore green.

We're also kind of Irish. 1/36th or something. Grandpa, who likes family history, always thought it was important, or at least interesting. The Irish history lessons appeared when I played games of Sorry with them, too. If it was March, he'd try to play Irish music (not for long, since Grandma and I could only take so much). He'd also employ the luck of an invisible leprechaun to help him win games. It didn't work well. Grandma said he must have drunken his way into a corner.  

The only time St. Patrick's Day was interesting to me was when we built the leprechaun traps. Our first grade class learned how to write letters, and one assignment was to write to a leprechaun to entice him to visit traps that we built. We built a fun one at home. Luring him with gold, he would walk into the trap and a box would fall on him. Kelly, sensing excitement, wanted to build one too. Unfortunately, it became obvious that the leprechaun's handwriting looked a lot like our teacher's. 

Years later, Emily randomly decided that she believed in leprechauns and wanted to leave out a trap of her own. She came home from school to green confetti, a goody bag of green gifts, and toilet water dyed green. Moms can be creative when they want to be.

Oh, and you can't forget about the Shamrock Shakes. True story: Shamrock Shakes are overrated. It's like drinking mint chocolate chip ice cream, and you have the sensation of being filled up. So you end up with two or three sips with most of the shake left behind. St. Patty's chocolate shakes, anyone?