TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 128

Mon Jan 22 07:21:08 PST 2007

January 22, 2000000007

Dear deer,

	I have a headache.  No.  Really.  I woke 
up with it.  Had another of my travelling dreams. 
I was getting my stuff together to go back home. 
I'd been staying at a friend's parents' house 
somewhere back on the east coast of the Untidied 
States.  There were lots of little kids going to 
school and staying home from school, and getting 
under foot in the nicest way.  But when it came 
time to go get my plane, I found that the only 
pair of socks I could locate had a huge hole in 
the foot part, leaving only an outline.  And 
where my shoes had been were a pair of shiny 
oxblood coloured wing tips with flattened toe. 
They looked like they were made of eel skin.  I 
put one of them on by mistake, then took it off 
and went in search of my shoes, my socks and the 
bags of possessions that I must have lying around 
someplace.  But I couldn't find any bags of 
things, just my abbreviated purse that holds 
credit cards, checkbooks, my glasses and that's 
about it, long shoulder strap.  I figured I must 
have fewer things than I thought, but it made me 
feel empty.  What had I been doing while I was 
staying there?  I couldn't remember.  In the 
dream, I had a headache.  Now I forget most of 
the dream, but I still have the headache.  I feel 
so privileged.

Party game

	At a friend's birthday party when I was 
very young, probably six, the girl's father had 
organized the after cake and ice-cream games.  We 
had come in and been escorted directly to the 
table where we were stuffed with nuts and 
raisins, candy, then fruit juice, birthday cake 
and ice-cream.

	"Cut me one with a rose in it!"  I 
ordered, gleefully.  The girl's mother was 
dealing with a whole sheet cake.  The roses were 
around the edge and a few in the middle to 
blossom around the candles.  There weren't a 
whole lot of roses to go around.  But she 
actually did cut off one piece of cake from the 
corner that had two roses on it, and the extra 
edge of the cake frosting.  I thanked her 
generously and devoured the cake, ignoring the 
ice-cream because all I had been given was a 
plastic fork, and ice-cream, as everyone knows, 
requires a spoon, preferably a metal spoon, but 
under the circumstances, plastic would have had 
to have done.  Then Ellen opened all her 
presents, said her prompted thank yous and we 
were all ushered to the back yard for the 
father's half of the party.

	We played tug of war, soiling our pretty 
little dresses, and we played a few circle games 
with a ball, and then we played pin the tail on 
the donkey.  I don't know where this game comes 
from.  The circle games and tug of war are old 
old games, folk traditions that capitalism has 
yet to tame into a copyrightable form.  But pin 
the tail on the donkey could have been an 
invention of a smart toy manufacturer.  Or it 
could be folk custom.  At any rate, the picture 
of the donkey is always grotesque.  Its hair is 
always matted and bunchy, the colour a drab grey 
or brown, the eyes opened like two dotted egg 
shells in shock, the nostrils flared, the lips 
curled to reveal a set of choppers meant for hay. 
Big, long teeth.  And then there's that bare 
rump, the expansive curve from which no tail 
hangs.

	We stood in a line waiting our turn to 
pin the tail on it.  The donkey was set up on a 
sturdy easel in front of the gentle arc where the 
lawn met the rose bushes.  Dad handed the first 
girl in line the donkey tail with a thumb tack at 
the tip, then wrapped a folded flour sack towel 
over her eyes.  He'd turn the blindfolded child 
several times around, winding up facing the 
easel, and gave the okay to go and pin forth. 
The girl would be a little dizzy and now didn't 
know where she was facing.  Tails were pinned on 
the donkey's ear, the donkey's ribs, its flanks, 
its nose, the air around the donkey.  No one came 
close.  This tickled the dad no end.  He laughed 
every time a little kid screwed up.

	It came my turn.  The birthday girl's 
father handed me a tail with thumb tack attached, 
affixed the blind fold and spun me around, then 
stopped me.  I was afraid I'd stumble on 
something and fall.  So I inched forward, tested 
the ground with my foot, tapping it in front of 
me, using it as a blind woman's cane.  When I was 
satisfied the coast was clear, I walked 
purposefully forward and thrust my tail into 
wherever it was going to turn out I thrust it. 
There was quiet.  I removed the blindfolds and in 
front of me was the big donkey with the tail 
stuck directly on the round bare ass, right 
there, one the edge of the line of the drawing, 
exactly where a tail should be.  Perfect.  The 
donkey had a tail.  My eyes opened wide and I 
laughed with pleasure.  Dad looked at me sternly. 
"You cheated.  You'll have to do it again without 
peeking."

	I protested.  "I didn't peek.  I didn't 
look.  Honest.  It was an accident!"  Here I was 
trying to convince the dad that I wasn't a lying, 
cheating, conniving miscreant.  What looked like 
a good job was an accident.  Honest, I can't do 
anything right to save my life.  Ask anyone!

	He took the tail out of the donkey's rear 
end and handed it back to me.  He wrapped the 
towel around my head extra tight and spread out 
the folks so that my entire face was covered. 
Then he turned me around numerous times, quickly, 
until I was barely standing, and he gave me a 
little shove.  I stumbled forward with my arm 
outstretched in front of me, and the next step I 
landed on something irregular.  I crumpled 
directly into the rose bushes, thorns scraping my 
arms and tearing my party dress.  I removed the 
blindfold.  Dad had aimed me away from the donkey 
and toward the bushes.  I was bloody and injured. 
My pride was injured.  Everyone was laughing.  I 
got up, crying and dragged myself back inside the 
house.

	I did not try to tough this out.  I did 
not hide my tears.  When I got inside the back 
door of Ellen's house, I wailed like a six year 
old.

	"What happened to you!?"   The mothers with their coffee mugs.

	"Can I call my mother?"  The hostess phoned my mother.

-- 

Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net