I want to be four!
Someone suggested we should become unicorns. She was tired of being a people. My reply was that I want to be four.
I picked four for a lot of reasons. At four, there's no school. There's only breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And nap. And snack. Sometime during the day, for some reason, four year olds still need a nap. I'm fifty. I need a nap. I didn't when I was four. I need one now. When I didn't need it, I had to take it or get punished. When I need it now, if I take it, I'm gonna get fired for loafing. Nobody minded me loafing when I was four.
I also picked four because at that point, you're potty trained.
At four, someone holds your hand when you cross the street. Someone knows it's a big, scary world out there and you need someone to help you navigate the perils. My life is a mess, in no small part thanks to my own self. At four, someone was there to tell me the stove was hot and not to stick my finger in the light socket. As a grown-up, I'm left to try and figure out what I'm supposed to do. God is leading, but at four, someone would tell me up front what to do. I didn't have to make choices.
When I did have to make choices they were easy ones like, do I want another cookie or do I want to lick the beater? Those were no-brainer choices. The answer was always yes.
At four, sometimes I had to eat things I didn't like. But not often. Now I'm just thankful there's some kind of food in the house. We had ribs tonight for super bowl but only because they were on manager's special and just $5 a rack. And there are leftovers for tomorrow. At four, I didn't get to pick dinner unless we stopped at Dee's drive in. Those were the days before the happy meal where you had to walk up to the window outside.
I still remember when they switched to the inside restaurants for McDonalds and Dee's. I'm old; I still remember Dee's.
At four there was always something good to play with. Now I have all these tools and I need them to fix crap. I've fixed the dryer now three times. Maybe on attempt #2 I should have more carefully routed the belt so it didn't become entangled in the idler arm spring and rip off the already-glued-on pulley that used to thread onto the motor shaft. At four, there wasn't much that Elmer's glue or scotch tape couldn't fix. Now it's JB Weld and duct tape.
At four, boo-boos got kissed and there wasn't much that a band-aid couldn't fix. Trips to the doctor were rare for me as I recall. At almost fifty, I remembered today that after the magic birthday, I get to have my first colonoscopy. Trips to the doctor occur with more frequency and the size of the pills I take now are huge. At four, there used to be these pills called Bayer Asprin for children. They were pint-size and tasted like orange. Of course, it was determined later on that these little pills did more harm than good to a lot of kids, but at four all you knew was it tasted like orange and made you feel better.
There are a lot of things we can't get now that we used to when I was four. Paregoric was my mom's weapon of choice when I was a kid. It tasted like crap and almost always made me puke. I guess it did its' job. I remember Paregoric. And Vick's vapor rub. That was also in the arsenal.
At four, there was Grandma. I miss grandma. I told someone I hated February because the worst things in my life have happened in February. Two marriages and my grandma died. You can keep February. At four, valentines were little cards you dropped on someone's doorstep then rang the bell and ran. At fifty, I'm pretending that February doesn't have a 14. February 15 makes four years now, but who's counting?
TV was good too. We had Bugs Bunny and at four you're smart enough to know it was just pretend. In real life if you touched a light bulb or the stove, it left a mark. And on Sundays, there was Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom and the Wonderful World of Disney. The TV always said in color but when I was four, TV was black and white at my house. We got our first color TV in 1976. My mom worked her ass off for that TV. She bought it at the Paris in the Cottonwood Mall. The Paris is gone. So is the Cottonwood Mall.
The biggest thing though about wanting to be four again for me is just simply this: If I didn't know what to, someone would tell me; I didn't have to try and guess and wait and see how it worked out. If I did what I was told, it worked out good. If I didn't, that's when I ran into trouble.
Being four was simple.
Being fifty is confusing and hard.
I picked four for a lot of reasons. At four, there's no school. There's only breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And nap. And snack. Sometime during the day, for some reason, four year olds still need a nap. I'm fifty. I need a nap. I didn't when I was four. I need one now. When I didn't need it, I had to take it or get punished. When I need it now, if I take it, I'm gonna get fired for loafing. Nobody minded me loafing when I was four.
I also picked four because at that point, you're potty trained.
At four, someone holds your hand when you cross the street. Someone knows it's a big, scary world out there and you need someone to help you navigate the perils. My life is a mess, in no small part thanks to my own self. At four, someone was there to tell me the stove was hot and not to stick my finger in the light socket. As a grown-up, I'm left to try and figure out what I'm supposed to do. God is leading, but at four, someone would tell me up front what to do. I didn't have to make choices.
When I did have to make choices they were easy ones like, do I want another cookie or do I want to lick the beater? Those were no-brainer choices. The answer was always yes.
At four, sometimes I had to eat things I didn't like. But not often. Now I'm just thankful there's some kind of food in the house. We had ribs tonight for super bowl but only because they were on manager's special and just $5 a rack. And there are leftovers for tomorrow. At four, I didn't get to pick dinner unless we stopped at Dee's drive in. Those were the days before the happy meal where you had to walk up to the window outside.
I still remember when they switched to the inside restaurants for McDonalds and Dee's. I'm old; I still remember Dee's.
At four there was always something good to play with. Now I have all these tools and I need them to fix crap. I've fixed the dryer now three times. Maybe on attempt #2 I should have more carefully routed the belt so it didn't become entangled in the idler arm spring and rip off the already-glued-on pulley that used to thread onto the motor shaft. At four, there wasn't much that Elmer's glue or scotch tape couldn't fix. Now it's JB Weld and duct tape.
At four, boo-boos got kissed and there wasn't much that a band-aid couldn't fix. Trips to the doctor were rare for me as I recall. At almost fifty, I remembered today that after the magic birthday, I get to have my first colonoscopy. Trips to the doctor occur with more frequency and the size of the pills I take now are huge. At four, there used to be these pills called Bayer Asprin for children. They were pint-size and tasted like orange. Of course, it was determined later on that these little pills did more harm than good to a lot of kids, but at four all you knew was it tasted like orange and made you feel better.
There are a lot of things we can't get now that we used to when I was four. Paregoric was my mom's weapon of choice when I was a kid. It tasted like crap and almost always made me puke. I guess it did its' job. I remember Paregoric. And Vick's vapor rub. That was also in the arsenal.
At four, there was Grandma. I miss grandma. I told someone I hated February because the worst things in my life have happened in February. Two marriages and my grandma died. You can keep February. At four, valentines were little cards you dropped on someone's doorstep then rang the bell and ran. At fifty, I'm pretending that February doesn't have a 14. February 15 makes four years now, but who's counting?
TV was good too. We had Bugs Bunny and at four you're smart enough to know it was just pretend. In real life if you touched a light bulb or the stove, it left a mark. And on Sundays, there was Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom and the Wonderful World of Disney. The TV always said in color but when I was four, TV was black and white at my house. We got our first color TV in 1976. My mom worked her ass off for that TV. She bought it at the Paris in the Cottonwood Mall. The Paris is gone. So is the Cottonwood Mall.
The biggest thing though about wanting to be four again for me is just simply this: If I didn't know what to, someone would tell me; I didn't have to try and guess and wait and see how it worked out. If I did what I was told, it worked out good. If I didn't, that's when I ran into trouble.
Being four was simple.
Being fifty is confusing and hard.
Comments
Post a Comment