I remember...

I always find it funny how memories are triggered and the way we connect things to each other. Sometimes it's a word, a sign, a scent, or something we taste. Other times it can be things as disparate as a behavioral trait in another, a name, a song, or a physical place. Another thing I find funny is the 'stories' that your parents will tell you when you are a child in order to get you to do what they want--actually, let's just call them for what they really are: lies (often innocent, and in most cases very funny, but lies nonetheless).

On the subject of those 'stories', I was sitting in my office today, eating a banana, when suddenly I remembered that my mom used to tell me that the bruises on bananas were sugar deposits and thus were sweeter. Now, I hated bruised bananas and I barely tolerate bananas now, even if they're not bruised. In addition, I never bought her story at all and thus used to throw out the bananas all the time if they had bruises. I still struggle to eat a banana with any bruises--now, I eat around the bruises and toss out every sullied part in order to not be completely wasteful. Nice try, mom...

In order to prevent me from playing with my bellybutton when I was little (I don't know why I wanted to, I guess I was a strange kid), my mother used to tell me that if my belly button came 'unscrewed' my bum would fall off. Straight off. Then I would just have a flat bit where my bum used to be. Traumatising? A bit, yes. It took me a pretty long time, sadly, to realize that this was a myth so I took pretty damn good care of that bellybutton until I was at least 11 or 12 years old.

I remember that after we left my father (I was roughly 4 years old), we had an orange VW bug that my mom loathed because it stalled and broke down constantly, however I am pretty sure that she named it Gertie. Why you would name a car that you literally thought was The Anti-Christ I will never know, but I used to go outside and talk to Gertie sometimes, under the assumption that Gertie, of course, was a skilled and active listener. I saw an orange VW Bug today that looked just like our old one and it made me hearken back to when I thought our car was a psychiatrist and I told her all of my little boy problems.

I don't know what to blame for this little bout of juvenile nostalgia today, other than having time to write on my dinner break. I just started to type what I was thinking and this is what came out, virtually unedited. Whatever.