The Old Van

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When I was growing up, my dad had a van. A really old van. And not old in the classic-vintage-any-kind-of-cool-way van.

Just old.

And dirty.

Not dirty old man.

But dirty old van.

Although, I hope to one day be called both.

Wha-?!

I have spent my adult life searching for a van with the insides that could match that one. The one from my memories. With the interior so covered in dog hair and dust that when you slid the door open, it appeared as though my father was throwing magic confetti into the air.

If magic confetti was made out of dog hair.

Which I am quite positive it is.

I am thinking I will never find a van quite like it.

My dad’s favorite color is blue. Every year he would paint his van a different shade of blue. Inevitably, it would chip or fade, so the van always had patches of different shades of blue peeking through it. It was like a blueberry jelly bean. Before they made blueberry jelly beans. It actually looked quite pretty paired with the rust. It had a special ombre effect decades before ombre would become fashionable.

When we were little we loved riding in the van. It had no unnecessary items. Such as seatbelts.

My sister and I would argue over who would get to ride in the front.

Looking back, I cannot quite figure out why this was. The front seat sat precariously balanced. Another unnecessary item in this van was the bolt that would have held the front seat in place. This meant that if you leaned back in the chair, it would topple over backwards.

We were a no frills family.

Seatbelts? Pfffft.

A seat that would stay in place? What are we? The Rockefellers?

Doors that stayed shut? Please. Those are for amateurs. Just don’t lean on the door and you’ll be fine. As in, you won’t tumble out onto the moving road. Or rather onto the road from the moving vehicle. I use the word “vehicle” loosely. It was more like the blue ride of terror.

I will never forget when my little sister was two.

I was pouting in the back of the van. Sitting as close to the console as I could get, away from the back. I was scared of the depths of the van. In fact, I never went back there. It was where all of the magic confetti was made. Too much of that stuff and I was sure I would drift into the dust motes that clung to the carpet as they unsuccessfully avoided being made into illustrious scraps of crap.

I was glowering at my sister who had once again scored the fun seat. The seat up front. She was busy spinning and trying as hard as she could to keep her balance so the seat would not topple into the back where I would surely hold her for ransom in an attempt to claim her throne.

It happened so quickly.

One moment we were being jostled down the dirt road that led to our house from my grandparent’s home. And the next moment, the front door had swung open.

And my little sister. My two year old little sister was holding on to the open door by the window frame. Dangling there like an unfortunate mountain climber in an action movie.

Or an unfortunate child of the eighties before there were laws concerning the safety of automobiles.

I will admit to laughing. I had no idea how dangerous the situation was. I thought she was just up to her old tricks. She was the dare devil. I seriously thought she was purposefully hanging onto an open door.

It was awesome.

And then she let go.

And my mom freaked the freak out.

She stopped the van.

She was terrified that she had run my sister over.

But she had merely fallen out. There was not a scratch on her.

It had to be all of that magical confetti.

We were always covered in the stuff.

You would think it was at this point that something in or on the van would change. Such as, I don’t know, adding a little fancy somethin’ like a bolt to a seat or a screw to the door.

Or a seatbelt for a toddler.

Nonsense!

The only thing changing on that van was which color blue it would be from one day to the next.

If you got black and blue from riding in the van. Well, you just matched it better.

We are going to fast forward this story to when I was thirteen. Seven years had passed since my sister’s little incident. The van had not changed. Or rather, I am sure it was still being painted yearly and the magical confetti had now had seven years to grow bigger. Thicker. Fuller. As we acquired more and more dogs to ride in the van (a story for another day).

We had a bus lane at our school. For buses. Let me repeat. For BUSES!

But my dad, well, my dad would pull up in the bus lane whenever he would pick me up. From Junior High School. It would go yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Blue. Yellow.

No one ever told him to move. They were much too in awe of his van.

I would, as quickly as I could manage, run up to the van. Yank it open, pause to admire the magic confetti as it swarmed into the sunlight intent on infecting delighting anyone who passed by, and then jump into the back as fast I could. Why the back? You ask.

I think maybe I was humbled by how amazing my ride was and maybe I did not want anyone seeing who was in the blue van. I did not want to be hounded with autographs. Did I mention the back seat had no windows? Yea. I was incognito in my coolness.

Years later I would learn that my little sister would make my dad park a block away from that junior high school so that she would not have to be bombarded by fans. You know. The fans that would swarm that awesome van.

Or at least, that is what I assumed.

My dad always fondly tells the story of how I was not embarrassed of his method of transportation. Of how my sister was so mean to make him park so far away. Of how I was the good daughter that allowed the van to truly shine. Where it did not belonged.

In the bus lane.

Of course.

I did not have the heart to tell him it just never occurred to me to ask him to park elsewhere.

The thought just never came.

You can blame it on my immaturity. My true love for the van. My desire for fame.

But we all know the truth.

The real culprit was the magic confetti.

I snorted too much of it.

I became an addict.

And then it was taken away. Sold. Never to be seen again. It went to a dealer. And I’m not talking cars.

I’m speaking of nostalgic shrapnel. Flakes of time. Decades. Of. Laughter. And screams.

That must be the reason that whenever I see a van the color of the sky, I grin widely and rush forward to peer inside.

To get a whiff.

Of blue painted dust mote magical memories.

The Puppy Dog Purse

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When I was a child, I was obsessed with the song, “How Much Is That Doggy In The Window?” And so when I was four, my parents happily rescued the cutest dog ever, Scruffy. Scruffy was with us for about a year before he ran away and never returned. Living in the country, this was the first of many reoccurring animal heartbreaks.

At Christmastime, my Great Aunt (although she was not truly my aunt. But that is a long story), would gift the children of my family a Christmas present until they reached the age of ten. Once they were ten, they were deemed too old for gifts. Being the oldest of the nieces and nephews by many years meant I reached that dreaded platform first and would watch with envy the other younger children receive their gifts. Whether this is true or not, in my mind, the gift was always the same. A brand new purse in the shape of a puppy dog’s head.

In kindergarten, I would take my purse to school with me. And whilst Scruffy was white and looked like a, well, scruffy sheepdog, my purse was soft and brown.

The thing was, I don’t even remember liking the purse that much.

It did not look like Scruffy.

But I knew it was special.

And so that is why, one day after school in kindergarten, I almost died for it.

My friend, Lizzie, and I were bus kids. And what that would mean, is that we would have to stay later than everyone else in kindergarten to ride the bus an hour and a half home. An hour and a half? We were mountain kids, too, this entailed that we wait to drop everyone in town off first before the bus could make its trek up the hill to our homes.

On the fateful day, I was loaded up with my backpack and my puppy dog purse, waiting in a clamoring line with Lizzie to get on the school bus. It was hot and everyone was pushing. Somehow, probably because I have always been graceful, I was pushed under the bus.

I remember laying under the bus, blood trickling, starting to well out of my knees, and sticking to my nylons. My hands were encrusted and embedded with gravel. I was sprawled there and when I looked up my puppy dog purse was laying beneath one of the bus’s wheels. I could almost reach it. So, because I was five, and because it was not in my head that this could be dangerous, I dragged myself so that I lay between the front tire and the back tire of the bus. And just as I grabbed my puppy dog purse, the bus started.

Yes, the kids had pushed me under the bus and then had gotten on the bus without a backwards glance.

The whole “thrown under the bus” saying has always had a special meaning in my heart. Meaning I never use that term.

I remember a brief moment of panic, but I was still too young to understand the danger I was in.

I was more afraid the bus was going to leave me. I was also overtaken with my first memories of pain as my hands and knees had begun to sting from the injuries that had occurred.

I could hear Lizzie screaming, “Jenni is under the bus! Jenni is under the bus!”

The bus continued to idle but I heard the bus doors open.

And then a white-faced bus driver was peering down at me. I cannot imagine what that woman must have been thinking. I do remember her berating me as she pulled me out from under the cavernous vehicle, but I was crying too hard to hear the words that her brusque mouth was making.

I clutched my puppy dog purse all of the way home.

That was not the worst of it.

Do you know what happens when you bleed into tights and the wound sits there for an hour and a half?

It scabs.

Over the tights.

So, when I got home, I faced a whole new ordeal.

They had to peel the crusted tights off of my bloody knees.

I remember my grandfather very sternly telling me that he had to do this, there was no other way and I just had to be brave.

I probably wasn’t.

I hated tights after that.

I hated the bus.

And I loathed that puppy dog purse.

Rather than blaming the children who had pushed me, or recognizing that the incident was an accident, I put all of the blame for the mishap on that purse. That adorable. Sweet. Fluffy. Deadly. Purse. It was innocent, but so was I. There was no one to blame. No guilty party. But the purse took the fall, literally.

And it, and its subsequent Christmas descendants, were never used again.

Top Ramen

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It seems as though Top Ramen has always been a part of my life. Or at least since I was twelve years old. When I was that age I was friends with the most popular girl in school. This did not make me the second most popular girl. Or the third. Or even the fourth. Let’s just cut to the chase. It did not mean that I was also a popular girl. It simply made me a lucky girl. Because everyone loved Nikki. She always had a smile. For everyone. And she had a mom who let her have an infinite amount of friends over to spend the night. So many of us from different social levels all gathered together to have this common ground.

Nikki.

I truly believe Nikki was the reason our school had no social structure. Everybody accepted everybody. In a class of over seven hundred, this was no small feat. But there was not a social class system in our school like I have viewed in movies and through the experience of my own children. With Nikki, you could be a fellow cheerleader or a nerd and you would have the same smile granted to you and the same feeling of specialness in the inevitable following hug.

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One night when we were sleeping over, her mother made all of us girls dinner. It was chicken flavored top ramen. I had been spending the night at Nikki’s house since I was eight years old, but this was the first time I had been served this meal. It was. The. Best. Thing. I. Ever. Had. I remember having seconds. And thirds. Never had I tasted such flavors. I told my mother about this intriguing new dish the next day and she just smiled. Top Ramen was never something we carried in our home.

But at Nikki’ house, we could have it whenever we wanted.

And we did. It was special. I did not view it then nor do I view it now as the cheap dish it is portrayed to be.

To this day I still love Top Ramen.

I still love Nikki.

We stayed friends throughout high school.

On May 6th. Of our junior year. Two days before her seventeenth birthday. Her boyfriend shot and killed her.

She was head cheerleader. Class Treasurer. The girl who had a smile for everyone.

It was devastating.

Is devastating.

I think of Nikki often. There will be a time when I will write more of her. But today is not that day. Her memory deserves more than a Top Ramen post. Writing about her breaks my heart. However, I could not help but share her today as I sit and eat such a simple meal. A treat associated with cheapness. With sacrifice. And simplicity.

I feel sorry for people who think of Top Ramen that way.

For every time.

Every single time I eat it, I am transported back to a kitchen. Of a surprise meal. A sweet smile. An angelic friend. Black hair. Brown eyes. Laughter. Tears.

Top Ramen might be simple to most.

But to me, it will always be rich in memories.

“Just Kidding”

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When I was four, I found out something wonderful. Something beautiful. It was…

Vocabulary.

With words, you could tell a whole new story. Put together a sentence that could change someone’s day. Alter the universe. Or at least my universe.

And what if?… Oh my gosh. What a thrill. Well, what if I could invent a new truth? Form words about a scenario that had not occurred. Would never occur. But with words, I could make it happen. Imagine it happened.

And then I discovered two words that would change my little world forever.

“Just.”

“Kidding.”

Put them together and my new truth wasn’t a new truth. It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t an elaborate tale. It was a glorious little thing called a “joke.” And everyone seemed to love a joke.

I reveled in this new manipulative (of course, I didn’t know that word back then) technique.

I could change words. Change the day. And make everybody laugh in the process.

I saw nothing that could go wrong with my new found power.

“Just kidding,” was golden. It was genius.

“Did you finish your green beans?”

“Yes, Mommy. They were delicious.”

Mommy looks at the plate. “You didn’t eat them! You didn’t even touch them!”

I put on my best smile. “I was just kidding Mommy.”

Mommy’s heart turns to butter that coats the green beans and turns them to mush. And I skip away from the table as an adorable vegetable-free little darling.

I turned the adorable up a notch (another power that was fading with age and the arrival of a pudgy toothless baby sister).

“Did you know that our dog is from the moon?

And he only eats rubber bands?

And at night he turns into my dresser and watches me sleep?”

Then I would grin. Wait an appropriate amount of time.

And burst forth with my delicious skill, “Just kidding!”

And everyone would laugh and laugh.

This went on for awhile. These innocent nonsenses. Fun little tales.

But the tales began to become bolder.

At first, it was just little things. Pretending the dog got out. Or there was a train in the road. The laughter I had used to receive began to dwindle.

My few short days as a comedian were coming to an end.

I was not ready to retire yet.

I needed the laughter. I needed the words.

I kept the “Just kidding” game going for as long as I could.

That is until it took a sinister turn.

I decided my little tales needed a bit more drama in them. Keep it exciting. Turn the power up a notch.

“Mommy! Mommy! There’s a stranger in our yard!”

Mom looks around in a panic. Grabs us. Rushes to hide. To protect.

After frantically searching, she comes back and there is me. Her manic four year old grinning ear to ear over how well my little joke worked.

“Just kidding!”

Mommy did not laugh that time. Oh no. In fact she looked downright mad.

She sat me down.

“You can’t say ‘just kidding’ like that anymore. It is lying.”

I was not giving up my power that easily.

“But it’s just a joke.”

“No. It’s lying.”

“But it’s not lying, because I say ‘just kidding,’ at the end.” She obviously didn’t get it. It was like I was saying, “Knock Knock,” and instead of responding ,”Who’s there?” in a sing song Mommy voice, she was instead hiding in the dark from a stranger at the door.

“Just because you say, ‘Just kidding’ at the end, does not make it a joke. It is still a lie. If you keep lying, you are going to get in trouble.”

The words sunk in. The power in them. I had been lying. That was bad, right?

I was a perfect angel after that talk.

I completely understood that I had been lying. That I had abused my power.

I was not stubborn then and I am not stubborn now.

I never lied again. Or got in trouble. I stopped telling people stories about my dog. Even when the dresser slobbered on me when I pulled my pajamas out of the drawer.

And I ate all of my green beans.

Forever.

Just kidding.