Throw Mama From The Slide

Sometimes life just hands you a pearl. For instance,  I was skyping with Rebecca (my sister in China) and we were discussing books.



She said, "Yeah, my college professor assigned us East of Eden once, so I bought the book. I kept reading it and thinking, 'But this can't be Steinbeck? It's kind of dirty.' And then I realized the book I bought was Exit to Eden, not East of Eden. So that explained why the sales lady gave me a funny look."



See? It was like the universe said, "I'm sorry it's Wednesday, Liz. This week has been a bummer. Here, here's a pick-me-up. Laugh at your sister."



Apparently, the universe thought Jane needed a pick-me-up this weekend, as she discovered the joys of pushing me down the slide.

Truthfully, she enjoyed pushing me because she didn't want to slide herself. She tried it once, got tangled up and went down butt first. Afterwards she decided her sense of survival was stronger than her need for adventure.

But after a while, I began to feel a bit, what's the word? Abused. She got this wild look in her eyes and it quickly became apparent that this was more about revenge than fun. This was about payback.

"Remember that time you gave me a pink hair bow and I specifically asked for red?"

 "Remember when I put necklaces and a hat on Mabel and you told me that Mabel didn't want to play princess with me?"

"Or that time I tried to pee standing up like the little boys in my daycare class and you told me I had to sit?"

"You're going down old woman."

"Just wait. Just wait until I choose your home. I'll make sure you have brown walls and the cafeteria serves lots of noodle salad."

And did I mention that after a certain amount of slide induced static build up I was my own personal battery? Every time I touched the slide a shock traveled through my fingers and out my teeth. Normally this sort of irritating, and recurring, pain would make me curse, but I couldn't do that since Jane was maintaining constant vigil over my speed, saying things like, "Hurry up, Mommy! SLIDE MOMMY!"

After 4,000 trips down Jane's slide of revenge I was done. This, of course, made the Janester furious, and all the way home she kept repeating, "We slide later." An outsider would listen to her chirp "we slide later" and hear an angelic little chirpy voice. I, on the the other hand, know better. I know she was really threatening me with future sessions of static shock and being pushed off tall objects.



This is what comes from throwing mama off the slide.