A Story

I was telling Kadootje a story about me when I was younger (much younger) playing in the rain, and since it's raining here on the Left Coast, I thought I would post it here, too.

It seems I was the perfect little First Born Girl, always doing what I was told (if it suited me) (if it was what I wanted to do anyway) (if I could do it my way). So Mommy had told me that if I was out playing when it was raining, I had to wear my boots, and being the good little girl, I always did.

Comes a rainy day, and I was out playing in a field near our house. (Minor aside: Unlike many kids today, rain did not stop us from playing outside back then... So you got wet. So what? Go outside and play!) I had fun, splashing in the water with my friends, and when we were done, I came home. I went in through the side door (like a Good Girl), where I was met by Mean Mommy, yelling at me for wearing my boots.

Man, was I confused. You said I should wear my boots when playing in the rain, I wore my boots when playing in the rain, and now you're yelling at me. What did I do wrong?

Hm. Splashing in mud puddles while wearing boots are one thing. Wading around in knee-deep water while wearing boots that barely went above my ankles... Um, perhaps that wasn't quite how it was supposed to work. Mom turned a great shade of red, told me to clean up and change into dry clothes, and we never spoke of it again until I was a good number of years older.

In 1996, my mom was visiting for my graduation, and we went out to dinner with a dear friend. J said something about what I must have been like as a little girl, and my mother said that when I was growing up, I intimidated her. She didn't know where I had learned to be so strong, or how I had learned to reason through things like that. I think what came to be known as The Boot Episode must have been one of those moments where she wondered what planet I fell from and why the hell I landed in her cabbage patch. Sometimes I wonder, too.

I still don't like the rain, but I like remembering this story.