Post by Penny on Sept 24, 2012 19:09:10 GMT -5
“Mom, I want to be Batman.”
We were standing in the produce aisle of the local Wal-Mart. Mom was picking up a cabbage the second I said that (so she wasn’t doing much). My little brother was in the basket of the cart, while I stood on the rails. She put the cabbage down, pretending not to be distracted by me even though she looked at me for a moment.
“You can’t be Batman, Rod. You don’t have superpowers. Off the cart, please.”
Rod was my name, short for Rodney. I like Rod better. I stepped off of the cart, moving to the side so I wouldn’t get run over while Mom pushed it forward.
“Batman’s just rich, Mom. I meant for Halloween.”
“Rod, you know we don’t celebrate Halloween.”
That was her answer every year, and every year I asked again. She said we ‘didn’t believe in Halloween’. Do you know how horrible it is to sit there staring out your window at all the kids running up to decorated houses and not being able to do it yourself? It’s even worse when the kids come to our house and they have to just be turned away, or you get sent to bed early so there are no lights on and they don’t come to your house then. I did that for twelve years of my life, and I was determined to get at least one year of being a normal kid in.
“But Mom, if I’m Batman then Chunky can be Robin.”
Chunky was my little brother’s name. It was short for Charles. What was it with my parents giving us really weird names that make us sound like old people?
“I don’t care, Rod. And don’t call him Chunky.”
Too bad Mom didn’t like our nickname for him, even though we’ve all called him that since birth basically. He even tells people his name is Chunky. Even his preschool teacher calls him Chunky.
“But Mom-“
“No buts!”
Well, after that, I decided it was good to stop pressing my luck- Mom can get flustered easily, unlike Dad. Dad’s pretty calm, even if he’s gone usually. He works in a mill a few miles out of town- long hours for just over a minimum wage. He always tells me that it’s better than not having a job though, and that when I grow up I’ll work there too.
I hope I don’t.
Soon, Mom paid for all of our groceries and we left. I grabbed most of the bags- she had Chunky. Lucky for me, they weren’t too heavy. So we went to our van, a red ’98 Plymouth Voyager with a million bumper stickers on it, put the groceries in and drove off. I got to sit in the front seat, and Chunky sat behind us in his car seat, playing with a new little toy Mom had gotten him in the store. We always have to grab him something when we went to a store to shut him up while we were there. This time it was a small rubber manta-ray, which he’d been chewing on the tail of since he got it. Usually, we don’t buy whatever it is he grabs, but since he stuck the thing in his mouth we figured it was only fair.
I sat there with my hands in my pockets and my head against the window, pretending to stare at the rain while we drove. It always rained here. Mom turned on the radio, playing some pop hits of whatever decade she grew up in. I finally heard her sigh when we were about halfway through the woods to our house.
“Rod, I know you want to do Halloween.”
Oh great. The Halloween Lecture.
“But it’s just too dangerous. You never know what type of person can be there in a costume, and the candy could be poisoned. You could get lost, or your little brother could wander into one of the houses or away from you or your friends while you’re all sidetracked. And if you get hurt then it’ll be too dark to find you until the next morning! And we live in such an off-the-wall area that if you need them the police won’t come, and there are mean older kids that could steal your boys’ candy even if it wasn’t poisoned.”
They were all stupid reasons. They gave us assemblies at school about strangers and candy and stuff, and even Chunky wasn’t dumb enough to go into some random guy’s house. We knew the whole drill because all the other adults told us all the time, not to mention her going on this tirade every single year. I knew why she really didn’t want us to go out.
It was because she was afraid.
We were standing in the produce aisle of the local Wal-Mart. Mom was picking up a cabbage the second I said that (so she wasn’t doing much). My little brother was in the basket of the cart, while I stood on the rails. She put the cabbage down, pretending not to be distracted by me even though she looked at me for a moment.
“You can’t be Batman, Rod. You don’t have superpowers. Off the cart, please.”
Rod was my name, short for Rodney. I like Rod better. I stepped off of the cart, moving to the side so I wouldn’t get run over while Mom pushed it forward.
“Batman’s just rich, Mom. I meant for Halloween.”
“Rod, you know we don’t celebrate Halloween.”
That was her answer every year, and every year I asked again. She said we ‘didn’t believe in Halloween’. Do you know how horrible it is to sit there staring out your window at all the kids running up to decorated houses and not being able to do it yourself? It’s even worse when the kids come to our house and they have to just be turned away, or you get sent to bed early so there are no lights on and they don’t come to your house then. I did that for twelve years of my life, and I was determined to get at least one year of being a normal kid in.
“But Mom, if I’m Batman then Chunky can be Robin.”
Chunky was my little brother’s name. It was short for Charles. What was it with my parents giving us really weird names that make us sound like old people?
“I don’t care, Rod. And don’t call him Chunky.”
Too bad Mom didn’t like our nickname for him, even though we’ve all called him that since birth basically. He even tells people his name is Chunky. Even his preschool teacher calls him Chunky.
“But Mom-“
“No buts!”
Well, after that, I decided it was good to stop pressing my luck- Mom can get flustered easily, unlike Dad. Dad’s pretty calm, even if he’s gone usually. He works in a mill a few miles out of town- long hours for just over a minimum wage. He always tells me that it’s better than not having a job though, and that when I grow up I’ll work there too.
I hope I don’t.
Soon, Mom paid for all of our groceries and we left. I grabbed most of the bags- she had Chunky. Lucky for me, they weren’t too heavy. So we went to our van, a red ’98 Plymouth Voyager with a million bumper stickers on it, put the groceries in and drove off. I got to sit in the front seat, and Chunky sat behind us in his car seat, playing with a new little toy Mom had gotten him in the store. We always have to grab him something when we went to a store to shut him up while we were there. This time it was a small rubber manta-ray, which he’d been chewing on the tail of since he got it. Usually, we don’t buy whatever it is he grabs, but since he stuck the thing in his mouth we figured it was only fair.
I sat there with my hands in my pockets and my head against the window, pretending to stare at the rain while we drove. It always rained here. Mom turned on the radio, playing some pop hits of whatever decade she grew up in. I finally heard her sigh when we were about halfway through the woods to our house.
“Rod, I know you want to do Halloween.”
Oh great. The Halloween Lecture.
“But it’s just too dangerous. You never know what type of person can be there in a costume, and the candy could be poisoned. You could get lost, or your little brother could wander into one of the houses or away from you or your friends while you’re all sidetracked. And if you get hurt then it’ll be too dark to find you until the next morning! And we live in such an off-the-wall area that if you need them the police won’t come, and there are mean older kids that could steal your boys’ candy even if it wasn’t poisoned.”
They were all stupid reasons. They gave us assemblies at school about strangers and candy and stuff, and even Chunky wasn’t dumb enough to go into some random guy’s house. We knew the whole drill because all the other adults told us all the time, not to mention her going on this tirade every single year. I knew why she really didn’t want us to go out.
It was because she was afraid.
