Glamour Girl

For my son’s fifth birthday, my mom came all the way from Maryland to be part of the birthday festivities. Of course, in typical kindergarten fashion, Ara got sick and generously shared his cold germs with me. My mother, a newly converted herbalist, took charge of our healing program. She administered hot and cold compresses, echinachea, charcoal tablets and endless garlic cloves of garlic on buttered toast to head the bad guys off at the pass, or at least give them a dinner break. As a staunch granola head, I accepted all forms of natural healing and vigorously cleared my chi, neti potted my nasal cavities, and took hot and cold showers to help the healing cause.

The night before the big birthday party, Ara kept coughing himself awake, crying, drifting off, then coughing himself awake again. Of course that meant that the entire household followed suit. Finally, at about 3:00 am I broke down. I crept into the guest bedroom and whispered my mother awake, then grabbed a jacket and ran out for children's Tylenol. 

King Sooper’s was surprisingly busy for three in the morning, bustling with customers and stock boys alike. I kind of liked the weird middle of the night vibe. Cheerily I greeted everyone I encountered, and asked a cashier for assistance in finding the medicine aisle. For some reason though, not many people smiled back. I was puzzled to find many of them skitter off with sideways eyes. I breathed into my palm and sniffed. Well, it wasn’t a basket of roses but certainly not so horrible as to provoke that reaction. Subdued, I selected three bottles and paid for them.

When I got home, my mother had turned on the living room light and was walking my fretful child, who was draped pitifully over her shoulder like a boneless chicken. “Got them!” I stage whispered triumphantly, waving the bag open. My mother took one look at me and started laughing. 

“What?” I demanded, but she couldn’t speak. “Just go look in the mirror,” she finally managed, and I did.

So. This is why women check themselves in the mirror before leaving the house. My face was amply festooned with trails of charcoal. There was a ring around my mouth, a smudge on my nose, and my horrified shriek revealed that yes, even my teeth were completely black. 

But there was a silver lining, believe it or not. Ara’s cough almost completely went away and the birthday party was a big success. And I have stopped eating charcoal.

Except for every once in a while, on special occasions. Like the flu.

At the Dominion of Kings

When my brother Ras was just a little dumpling, around seven or eight, my parents bought into the American dream and took us all to King’s Dominion, the closest amusement park.

As we raced away with dollar bills stuffed into our pockets, my mother bleated after us: “Watch Ras!” Of course. Our job.

I thought it would be best if my brother stuck to rides like the Cups and Saucers and the Ferris Wheel, and due to his lack of life experience I figured he’d be an easy sell.

But no. I didn’t factor in my brother’s innate love for danger, which had up till then only surfaced once, when he accidentally walked all the way up Carroll avenue to Sligo Church hoping to catch up with my mom after she’d fetched us from school. When we spied him, sniveling under his pageboy cut at the intersection, we dragged him into the car and all three chastised him so thoroughly that I thought he’d wear a bike helmet and shin guards just to go to the bathroom forever more.

He observed the cotton candy smudged babies looping vacantly on the Ferris Wheel, with all the enthusiasm of someone waiting for an elevator, but just as I thought he was about to get in line he spied a group of bigger kids racing toward the Rebel Yell, and off he went. Reason, logic and mild threats were ineffective. He stubbornly ignored me and inched forward with the rest of the lemmings.  

Finally we reached the front of the line. My brother, scrawny and screaming, leaped in and excitedly yelled at me to join. I gingerly stepped in next to him, and the “safety” bar descended over our laps and hung there, a good six inches away. No seatbelts, no harness. Just one thin stainless steer bar keeping us from launching into orbit like two curry scented satellites. I ordered my brother to hang on, but at the first apex, the people in the car before us threw their hands up in the air and yelled. My foolish brother followed suit, and as we began the first drop, I saw his sixty pound body start to float off the seat.

“Grab the bar!” I screamed, illustrating by clutching the bar. He pretended not to hear me, waving his toothpick arms around and yelling with the big kids. He continued to rise. Terror pinned me to the seat but with a superhuman effort I managed to lift one leg and throw it over his lap, tethering him to the seat. He didn’t appear to notice and kept waving his arms above his head. 

As we sped up and down, I felt my leg starting to go numb, but I feared losing my leg less than I feared facing my parents if I lost my brother.

When we finally stopped, I grabbed my leg and hoisted it off of him. Without a backward glance he leaped off the train and ran to brag to my mother as I limped along behind him. “What’s wrong with your leg?” my mom asked. 

This is the part where you expect me to say, “nothing,” and be a silent and brave heroine, but nope! I told the whole story to my family, and everyone was duly impressed. I might have even gotten a cotton candy as a reward, or maybe a little toy. All I know is that my good deed was somehow rewarded, and so this story has a happy ending in more ways than one.