It’s Shaun, taking over the blog again.
Oh, writer’s block, why dost thou come to me every Thursday afternoon when I am in desperate need of an idea for this blog?
Even though I start to think about what I am going to write a day or two ahead of Thursday sometimes it seems utterly pointless.
How do you professionals do it I wonder? Carrie never seems to have writer’s block! Of course, she is working on so many different projects at once, hers and others, that I think moving from one project to another gives her not only a respite from any one project but also allows her brain to roam freely about and not be locked into that dead zone of no new ideas.
Me? I just try to think of anything I can that is not related in any way to the subject matter at hand. Get it? At hand … writing, typing, it is a hand joke and in no way meant to be a sexual inuendo.
Even after all of this rambling, I’m still stuck so I’ll take a mental break and see what happens if I just think of the first thing that comes to mind and randomly type what I’m thinking.
So, I was probably somewhere between the ages of two and three, I theorize this because I remember I was very young and I also remember that my mom and dad were already divorced and that happened when I was two. These memories are almost fifty years old, so Mom, if you read this, don’t hold me to it.
My mom will never read this, no worries! I’m more worried about Carrie and the hand joke, honestly.
There I was, an outstanding Saturday morning and son number one, the only son for another ten or eleven years, had arisen early and sat himself on the living room floor to watch Saturday morning cartoons. Remember those? The good ones, the basic ones, the ones which don’t get any attention in the modern world.
Well, son number one decided he was hungry and went to explore the refrigerator. Hmmm, not much in here for an inexperienced chef to prepare, but wait! What was that? In the blue wrapper, the most divine of sweet snacks. Why were they in the refrigerator? Mom, don’t you know that if you refrigerate Oreos if is almost impossible to separate the chocolate wafer from the cream without breaking the wafer. Dammit woman, who does this?
I was not allowed to eat cookies without permission. Peanut butter and bread, maybe I could have gotten away with that, but who thinks about lowly peanut butter and bread when you have a package of Oreos sitting in front of you?
I was starving and apparently Mother needed her sleep so much that she could not possibly awaken and feed her starving toddler so I had to take matters into my own hands! Besides, she wouldn’t, couldn’t, possibly notice if I only took two or three Oreos and closed up the package exactly as I found it. Problem solved! Let’s take three because it’s harder to recognize an odd number missing than an even number. I thought.
Let me tell you, there is nothing better than watching the coyote lose at his own game over and over again while munching on Oreos. Little did I know that anvil was soon to be falling on my head.
As I sat on the floor, munching Oreos, I remember thinking that I really wanted to be a part of the excitement taking place on the screen in front of me. I know! I thought. I can just jump through the television screen and I will be magically transported to the world of coyote’s and road runners, Bugs Bunny, and Yosemite Sam!
I stood up, ready to leap. But wait, something was wrong with that theory. I touched the screen of the television, hard glass. No, this couldn’t be right. Glass cut you and I did not want to be cut.
Phew, close call!
I was brilliant, but all of that thinking had made me hungry again. Mom would not notice if I took just another couple Oreos, I wondered. Would she? Nah, never!
By my fifth trip back to the refrigerator, I knew that I was just as screwed now as if I had tried to jump through the screen of our television. Why did I have to be such a hungry kid? Why wouldn’t my mother wake up and feed me healthy and nutritious food like a good parent and prevent me from being a thief who is surely going to get caught?
I sat back down in front of the television to watch more cartoons and await my inevitable demise. For some reason the cartoons weren’t as joyous and funny as they had been just a short time ago.
Finally, Mommy made an appearance and we exchanged our morning pleasantries. Everything seemed fine. Somehow she has not noticed my chocolate wafer lipstick!
She asked if I wanted some breakfast and I immediately answer no and that I was not hungry. I was. I was always hungry, but she couldn’t enter that refrigerator under any circumstances! I heard her piddling around in the kitchen for a while and things were going great. I was going to get away with this.
I felt a presence behind me and I turned my head to see my mother’s leg, so I looked up. She was scowling.
My heart exploded into a red, dusty cloud of terror.
She asked the question.
Did I eat any Oreos this morning?
I immediately replied with the most truthful answer I could think of under such tremendous pressure.
No.
I do not remember what happened after that. My mother was a calm and loving mother who would occasionally lose her temper with me but had two huge sticking points when it came to child rearing—lying and losing one’s temper.
I can only assume that was my first taste of my most often suffered punishment. Time in my bedroom, sitting on my bed, alone, to think about my crimes. She was a time tyrant when it came to timeouts and they were always long! I mean, an hour is an eternity to anyone less than ten right?
So, there you go, now I am ready to write a blog and I have a fantastic idea. Unfortunately, I have used up my allotted space in the world of internet writing and it
will have to wait until next week. Hopefully, if you happened to have been stricken by writer’s block when you embarked on this reading journey that it is now gone and long forgotten. Go write something, anything, the good words will come to you.
Peace!
Shaun
Let me tell you all that Shaun still sneaks Oreos. Only now he does it at night when he lets Sparty out into the backyard and he doesn’t get time-out for his crime. I just buy more Oreos and pretend like I haven’t noticed.
xo
Carrie
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