I have no idea what made me think about the following incident today. It has nothing to do with St. Patrick’s Day or wearing green or playing bagpipes. I do hope that you had a fun day celebrating your Irish heritage even if you have no real Irish heritage!

Remembering this incident might possibly have something to do with a mother (location unknown) who realized that her young daughter’s beloved goldfish bowl held zero actually living goldfish one recent morning.

Maybe I heard it on The Today Show. Maybe I read it online. Maybe someone wrote it in a blog post. Maybe I dreamed it. Anyway, the mother was worried that her daughter would be extremely upset upon finding out about the goldfish demise.

So the mom added some of those very small carrots to the goldfish bowl…and everything was just fine and dandy when the daughter checked on the goldfish! I wonder how the carrots are doing floating (?) in that water-filled bowl!

Hearing about the carrots being goldfish must have reminded me about THE INCIDENT that happened to me a long time ago when I was fourteen. My cousins were visiting our house for for a few days or maybe one day. That’s not the really important part. Their parents and my parents were drinking coffee and talking in the breakfast room. The children were driving them crazy. I was the oldest and two years older than their oldest. There were five of them and one of me.

 

 

So their mom said…

I have a great idea! Tricia (me)…walk all of the kids down to Gibson’s (a small Walmart type store). Let them each buy a little toy and then walk back. And she gave me some money.

Gibson’s was just a couple of blocks away and we did fine walking and even crossing a street. When we got into the store, I gathered all the children around and gave them a lecture…good practice for when I became a teacher. I told them that we would…

STAY TOGETHER, NOT RUN,  NOT SCREAM, NOT CRY. BASICALLY ACT JUST RIGHT OR THERE WOULD BE NO LITTLE TOYS!

They all shook their heads up and down. They promised. As soon as we started walking towards the toy department… the oldest child ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction. The rest of us did not follow my very fair rules and all screamed at him to stop. He kept going. I was beyond furious. I had never been so furious in all of my fourteen years.

We looked all over the store and could not find him at all, so we walked back to the front door of the store and waited. We saw him walking towards us looking like a rat that fell into the creek and could barely walk.

The child (twelve years old and he should have known better) was soaking wet. His hair was flying every which way but the right way. Water was dripping down his face. An awful sight.

I screamed (another scream)…”What have you been doing? You look crazy!” Honestly, it was just downright embarrassing. And then he said…

“Tricia…don’t you understand? I stuck my head in the fish tank! All I wanted to do was to see what the world looked like for a fish. Doesn’t everyone think about that?

 

That twelve year old boy is a successful writer now. He has imagination and creativity galore! I cannot help but think…why in the world didn’t I stick my head in that fish tank?

 

Happy St. Patrick’s Day…And Keep Celebrating All During the Weekend!!