Bob Marley & Me

I'm listening to Bob Marley just because, and it occurs to me that Bob Marley will forever remind me of the time when I was 6, had the chicken pox, and my parents chose THAT day to go out and buy Slip'N'Slide. They set it up in the backyard while my brother and sister ran upstairs and gleefully changed into their swimming suits. I stood by forlornly as they dashed past me, towels over their arms, and ran out the back door.

I started off staring out the back window, my heart in my throat, but decided I wouldn't be a victim. I had a child-sized folding chair, which I dragged into the family room and opened up. I got my own towel and spread it out over the chair. I taped a paper sun over the lamp that hung over the computer table, and brought two bunches of bananas from the kitchen counter and set them on the coffee and end tables. As a finishing touch, I popped my parents' Bob Marley cassette into the tape deck and prepared to relax.

I don't even think five minutes went by before my mom discovered me. "What's this!" she cried, abruptly hitting the stop button on the music. "Bananas do not belong in here! We'll get bugs! And THIS!" She tore my beautiful paper sun off the lamp. "A fire hazard! You better be glad I found this and not your father! What were you thinking?"

I clearly remember being six years old, in my pajamas, pathetically covered in my pox, and hearing the joyous screams of my siblings, just outside the window, loving up the Slip'N'Slide.

And people wonder why I am the way I am.