on the bedpost overnight

If you know even part of the tune, you may as well go to the link, print out the lyrics, and keep them on the nightstand ’cause this song could keep you awake for hours and wake you up in the morning.

My manager stopped at my cubie one day last week and offered my neighbor and me our choice of peppermint or spearmint gum. Her daughter’s science project is experimenting with various brands of chewing gum testing the flavors’ individual longevity. Since she and her husband are developing speech difficulites along with jaw pain, would we please participate? Please, pretty please? I decided after approximately a half hour that the flavor was going rather flat and noted it as such on paper for the sake of science.

Then it occured to me that if it were stuck on something like a bedpost or underneath a shelf, the side of the monitor, or under a chair seat and left there overnight or for several days, the flavor would be revived. How, I don’t know exactly, but it would.

I called my sister last night and asked her what was our first trip to see the oldest sister Mary in New Mexico. I was pretty little at the time and couldn’t remember exactly. The first was 1953, Christmas.  That puts me at 2 months shy of 4.  According to her, we traveled the 2000 mile round trip at least once a year, making the one in ’53 and at least 2 of the subsequent trips somewhat of a blur of memories for me.

I remember high rock walls on either side of the highway, yucca plants, cacti, scenic desert overlooks which are documented in tiny black and white snapshots, and sand. Lots of sand. One memory was eating in a diner, the kind with the long counter and swivel seats trimmed in chrome mounted on a step up from the floor away from the ordinary tables where we, the lowly rabble, were confined.

The swivel stools fascinated me. Every chance I had I would find an empty one, lay on it on my tummy and spin. Mom being Mom, I imagine this didn’t last long. Something about my feet hitting people trying to walk by. (Mean mommy) When it was time to pay the bill, the rest of the family dashed to the car to establish the standard seating arrangement, one sister got one window, the other sister the other and the short one had to sit in the middle with a comic book. (Mean sisters) So I stayed back with the mommy who had given me strict orders not to spin on the stools anymore. I turned to look at them one more time and noticed that underneath every stool was a treasure of free chewing gum. Bubble gum, juicy fruit, doublemint, Beemans, all reclassified as ABC, it was all there for the taking, but I had to work fast.

I don’t know how many miles we were down the road before someone noticed how fat my cheeks were. But I can tell you for sure that it takes more than one person to use up the flavor completely.

I used to drink out of the ditches around Cameron too. Maybe that’s why I don’t need a flu shot.