oh yeah, old maria stories

We were talking about James and Monster Mash, and then the conversation shifted to the weirdness of Maria when she was small.

She had that imaginary friend, Nina, which was pretty weird.

But there also was the incident with the ham. Time to make sandwiches, no ham in the fridge. Where the hell is the ham? Dang kids ate it, I guess. They eat everything.

We moved on with our lives, made egg salad instead, whatever.

Well, a couple weeks later I was cleaning Maria's room, doggedly sorting out a basket of Potato Heads, taking out the Legos and non-Potato Head items, and saw a bit of plastic sticking out from under the dresser.

I pulled it out, and it was the bag with the HAM. Eeeeeewwww. Oh, eeeewww. It did not look good.

But the question was why? Why? She wasn't talking.

Around this same time, Jay's deodorant disappeared, and Maria was giggling overly much while he shaved and got dressed--Dad used a girl deodorant. Well, shoot, his deodorant is lost. I'll have to buy him a new one.

She'd thrown it under her bed.

And then laughed at the man.

Strange.

Sigh.

But then there was this:

front

Weird,eh?

One night I put a casserole in the oven, and shortly the smell was nasty, like something burning. I went to the oven, and the hot dish wasn't even very hot. But something was going on, something burning.

I took the pan out to see if something had spilled into the bottom of the oven? Nope.

Then I pulled out the broiler, and it was Ken. KEN, oh my GOODNESS! She'd thrown him in the broiler and nobody knew he was there.

He was a puddle, but after he cooled a little, we pried him off the pan. We didn't want Maria to see because we thought it might scare her. I wrapped him up and put him way back on the cupboard.

back

Later on, after she was in bed, when we were telling her dad the story, we showed him Ken, all corrugated on the back.

So, speaking of weird, I wrapped Ken back up and threw him in the back of that cupboard in a box of Jay's grandma's dishes, and that's where he's been for like thirteen years. There's a sentimental attachment, I guess.

He's a memory of this beautiful, strange, moody little character who grew up into a woman you can trust, a person who makes sense.





I still wonder about that ham though, and what's so funny about hiding your dad's deodorant? And why on earth did she toss Ken in the broiler? She doesn't remember, and doesn't know. Sigh. It'll always be a mystery. love, Val