May 11, 2005

Pineapples

I've said it before on this blog, but it bears repeating: I am scared to have children. I know I'm not the only person who feels this way, but I don't seem to have the same concerns that the rest of my married-but-childless friends have. I'm not worried about the finances (I'm sure I'll be broke the minute I go into labor, never to return to a positive cash flow until my children enter retirement age), nor the way my life will radically change (I've been through a lot, I think I can hack it) nor the fact that my carefree days of being without children will be over (I currently raise a dog with an attitude and a husband -- I'm no stranger to responsibility).

I'm worried because I never quite know what to do with children.

When I was growing up, one of my aunts married this guy named George. George was basically the playboy of the Western world -- he came from a wealthy family, went to school at some of the finest preparatory schools in the country, was quite handsome and didn't need to work since he had so much family money. He was busy gallivanting around (as far as I can tell, only the truly wealthy gallivant, the rest of us just wander around) and happy to date whomever he met until he met my aunt, fell in love and got married (only to get divorced seven years later, but that's the subject of my aunt's blog, not mine).

One summer I was in Houston visiting the happy couple and my aunt was.....well, she was elsewhere. I actually don't remember where she was at the time. Probably shopping. In any event, I was alone in their cavernous house with my uncle George. And George had no idea what to do with me. He tried asking me about school (and kids who are in grade school just love to talk about classes, so that went nowhere), gave me the grand tour of the house and basically tried to figure out what I wanted to do.

What I wanted to do was eat. I was the type of kid of was so skinny they looked like they were malnourished, yet I ate constantly. Couldn't get enough food. So, I told George I wanted something to eat. We wandered into the kitchen, and he flailed around like a fish on the deck of a boat and tried to find something for me to eat.

He disappeared in the pantry, and came up with a jar of olives. He turned around and looked at me, looked at the olives, realized he had mistaken me for a martini and returned to the pantry. He came back with a jar of crushed pineapple. Not wanting to be rude, I didn't ask what sort of dish he planned to whip up with the pineapples, and I couldn't recall the USDA's food pyramid well enough to quibble with his choices, anyway, so I let it go to see where he was going with this.

He opened the can with the can opener and handed me the open can with a fork. I stared at the can blankly. "What's this?" was all I could manage to ask. "It's pineapple! It's really good!" he replied, as if to convince me that pineapple was far tastier than I'd imagined. I looked at him and deadpanned, "George, I'm 10. I need more than pineapple."

To be fair, my aunt who married George used to babysit me by taking me to Gilley's Honky Tonk in Pasadena, Texas and sit me on the edge of the dance floor with a Shirley Temple while she danced the night away. I doubt she would've been up for any parenting awards, either.

So I know how George felt. He was a nice guy who meant well, he was just so far removed from children that he had no idea what to do when he was around one.

Fast forward to last weekend. Friday night was the lock-in for our church's high school youth group. Archi-Sapper had volunteered to chaperone the lock-in, which was from 8:00 p.m. until 8:00 a.m. I did not volunteer for this foolishness, because by 11:00 p.m. I'm usually sacked out. I can stay up for special occasions, but special occasions for me usually don't involve sitting in a dark, empty school, eating cold pizza and watching the children of the corn play video games and try to trash the place.

I did attend the beginning of the lock-in, and stayed until the point where they actually locked the doors. At that point I bailed, went out for a drink with a friend and then headed home.

Archi came home the next morning and crashed. When he woke up I asked him how things had gone. He said, "It was fine. There were some funny moments." I said, "Yeah? Like what?" He responded, "Well, one of the kids brought a DVD of a stand-up comedian and it was hilarious. But we were watching it with the kids, and I looked at the other chaperone and said, 'If Kitty were here, she would flip out. She would never let the kids watch this with all of this bad language.' The other chaperone said, 'Yeah.......Okay kids, we're turning this movie off!'"

*sigh*

In the end, I suppose George and I will be just fine.

Posted by Kitty at May 11, 2005 08:31 PM

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