The Bane of My Existence

“Mr. Sandman” drifted through the windows I had helped Daddy measure and cut nearly three years ago. Our seventy-three-year-old neighbor, Mrs. Ozan was baking cookies with the windows open and her old-timey radio blasting one of The Chordettes’ hits through the syrupy air. I could never quite bring myself to ask her how anyone in their right mind could bake with the oven on, the windows open, and the AC off in the middle of summer in southern Texas. But she always gave me cookies, so who was I to question her sanity?

Summer staples included Mrs. Ozan’s cookies, lemonade with bucket loads of sugar, lime popsicles made in our very own freezer, and grilled cheese sandwiches made with one slice of swiss and one slice of muenster cheese for a few bites of bliss. Of course, there was always that healthy stuff Mama made me eat, but I didn't like to think about what could be in the so-called brussel sprouts that masqueraded as actual food.

That day, like almost any other, I lay in my tree house wishing for the clingy Texas summer to leave as it did for the few sporadically placed weeks between November to around February sixteenth. The rest of the year was exactly like this: hot, humid, and wholly unpleasant. Rarely, and by rarely I mean there was a one-in-eighty-three chance per day, a breeze would blow long enough to lift a hair from my forehead and give a slight reprieve. As Mama always said, “That’s Texas for ya.” It goes without saying that she always said this, without fail, with her heaviest southern drawl that was usually reserved for scolding me, but this was an exception. 

My tank top was already sticking to me and it was only eleven-thirty in the suffocating air. I had thought about moving from my spot to go swimming or to the park with my friends, but I started sweating more at the mere thought of lifting a finger. So, there I was, nearly three hours later, still laying in the same position—looking like some kind of starfish—while contemplating the meaning of life and deeply pondering what kind of cookies Mrs. Ozan would be bringing over later.

I could honestly swear I’d never seen that woman sweat in all the years I’d known her, and I’d known her all my eleven years of living. The thought of Mrs. Ozan's sweating habits intrigued me more than they should have and, after about ten minutes, had me seriously questioning her human nature. Sure, I’d seen her eat, but in those movies where aliens impersonated people, the aliens had to eat too, right?

My tree house had no roof, so I saw the sun-dappled leaves that cast shadows down on me while I let my mind wander from aliens’ eating habits to the unknown reason for the existence of brussel sprouts. 

For a while, I’d been drifting in and out of sleep that bestowed upon me the image of Mrs. Ozan with a green head and two beady black eyes holding up the live-long-and-prosper sign from that old space TV show that Daddy likes. I decided it was one of the top three most disturbing images I’d ever seen; the others had to do with using ants as stitches and the clichéd dream of showing up at school naked, but I tried to block all of those out. Instead, I decided that Mrs. Ozan had to be one of the nice aliens if she was one. 

The light ticking of the plastic timepiece I had hung by myself nearly three years ago when Daddy and I were finishing my little tree house paradise drew my attention. The second hand ticked out five minutes before I remembered to actually check the time. One thirty-five felt different that day. The lemonade Mama had brought out earlier was just as sweaty as me, but that was normal. And the homemade lime popsicle’s stick—long licked clean—stood wedged between floorboards as always. Lime and lemon. Second only to Daddy’s brisket and Rudy’s BBQ sauce,—not the sissy sauce—I thought lemon and lime made the perfect combination. My stomach growled and I realized I hadn’t eaten since my half-finished bowl of Apple Jacks that morning.

When I sat up, the sweat mark I had made while laying down revealed itself and I thought it actually did look like a starfish. I imagined myself diving underwater with the fish I’d always seen at aquariums, swimming with dolphins and the sharks. Suddenly, the thought of being underwater made me realize I also needed to relieve myself.

I stumbled through the back door towards the bathroom as fast as I dared while silently wondering if starfish peed. Whenever we go to the beach, are we just swimming in starfish pee? I giggled slightly which only made my need for a restroom worse.

After answering nature’s call—which was something Daddy said in his own southern drawl and also a saying that had Mama glaring at him—I walked into the kitchen to find Mama flipping a hot grilled cheese sandwich onto a Dixie paper plate with little purple flowers around the edges.

“Darlin’,” Mama smiled at the hair plastered to my forehead with sweat. “I made your lunch. Figured you’d be comin’ in soon.”

The perfectly melted cheeses and crispy bread made for the most astounding lunch ever created. A wide smile stretched across my face as I sunk my teeth into the crispy bread. Around the grilled cheese in my mouth I said, “Thanks, Mama.” Her hands made deft, practiced movements as she washed the pan, and my mind got lost in itself again until it ran into a thought that captivated me so much that I just had to ask.

“Mama?”

“What is it, Darlin’?” Mama always called me darling but without the “g” sound at the end. I supposed that was another exception to when she used her deep southern drawl. A lot of the time Mama left off the last letter or let one word flow directly into the next. When I asked her about it, she just said it was how her parents had talked so it was how she talked. I could always hear when she switched from her normal southern to her back-woods southern. Often, I caught myself slipping into a lazy way of speaking as she did.

“Do you think starfish pee?” I waited. 

Mama blinked. Then she started laughing, “‘Do starfish pee?’” Her hands gripped the edge of the counter as she leaned against it. “Well, I don’t really have an answer for that one. I’d suppose they do, but I don’t know.” Her eyes danced with a shine in them and her smile lit up the world as it always did.

I chewed some more cheesy goodness. I should really look into this, I thought, “Guess I’ll have to find out.” With that, I polished off the rest of the sandwich and headed back out to the tree house with Mama’s giggles following me all the way.

I bet starfish do pee. They have to. Right? I’d been laying in the same pose as before for the past forty-five minutes when I heard the back door sliding open.

“Yoo-hoo! Missy Mae,” Mrs. Ozan traipsed through the ankle-high grass as I flipped onto my stomach to see what she had brought.

“Hiya, Mrs. Ozan,” I smiled automatically at the sight of one of her signature near floor-length dresses and the plate she held that was piled high with freshly baked cookies. Her dress was a pale blue that looked like the sky itself right when the sun was barely visible over the horizon; it was one of many in the same style.

“What’s on the menu today? Could it be a new concoction?” I felt proud of myself for using “concoction” in a sentence; it felt very sciency.

“Today, it’s cranberry and white chocolate,” she lifted the plate high above her head towards me where I stretched my arms as far as they would go to meet her halfway as my mouth watered. With the plate firmly in my grasp, I caught a whiff of the heavenly smell of berries, butter, and chocolate that I associated with Mrs. Ozan. “Seein’ as your birthday is coming up, I figured you might enjoy your favorites” she gave a smile and shaded her eyes from the harsh rays of light.

Someone give this woman an award. The perfectly chewy, tart, chocolatey piece of heaven melted on my tongue and I gave a soft sigh of contentment.

Mrs. Ozan gave a chuckle, “Glad you approve.” She smiled when I grabbed another from the pile.

“Mrs. Ozan, you never fail to make my day,” Mrs. Ozan was truly the best neighbor anyone on God’s green earth could ask for. “Thanks for bringing these over, Mrs. Ozan.”

She gave the tree a slight pat and started to walk back inside, “Anything for you, Missy Mae. I’ll see ya’ll soon, now!” 

The sliding door shut behind her with a slight click and then it was just me, my backyard, and a plate filled with cookies. Whenever I saw Mrs. Ozan, she called me Missy Mae like my mama called me Darlin’. When I went over earlier in June, she said that ought to have been my name: Missy Mae. I could have been Missy Mae, but my parents settled on Mae Jean. I thought it would’ve been funny to hear “Missy” being called out on a street and seeing all the young girls around turn to the voice only to see it was me who was being called for. That scene was among the top five things I wanted to see. My list also had a meteor shower on it and now included starfish pee—if it existed.

Over this past school year, I had grown fond of my real name. Before, the teachers all called me Mae Jean—both my first and middle names—which I despised. It always made me feel very...pretentious, which I didn’t want. That year I had asked my teachers to call me either Mae or Jean but never Mae Jean. To my surprise, they all agreed and from the beginning of that year on, I was either Mae to most people or Jean to a few others. The fact that my name was interchangeable was kind of cool, to be honest. It was like I had a real name and a spy name. I ended up dressing as a spy the next Halloween; my dreams were fulfilled.

Gradually, the sun descended until it was three fifteen and Daddy came up the tree house ladder in two big steps. He handed me a lemonade with clinking ice cubes and a plate that held what was quickly becoming my most hated veggie: brussel sprouts. Even over the glorious smell of the cranberry-white-chocolate-chip cookies, the horrid odor of feet assaulted my nose.

I pinched my nose, “Ew,” my voice came out all nasally. “Hi, Daddy,” my eyes never left the plate that held the brussels.

Daddy smiled at the disgust I was sure was written, plain as day, on my face, “Ain’t ya gonna give ‘ol Dad a hug?”

“Course I am,” Daddy was too big to fit inside the Tree house, so I wrapped my arms around his neck as he leaned through the small door frame. He smelled like salt, pepper, paprika, and a bunch of other spices I didn’t know, but I knew that smell and what it meant.

“Are we having steak?” Daddy made steak often during the summer, but I never tired of a good steak with buttery mashed potatoes on the side.

“We sure are. They’re marinating right now,” Daddy looked at the plate he had brought with him and lifted it towards me with a slight grimace-smile. 

“Really? Again?” I took the plate and watched the little green bulbs roll around like really gross, really unappealing, misshapen marbles. Needless to say, it was a terrible sight.

“Mom’s orders,” He waited while I mustered up the courage to force one of the evil mini cabbages down. “In my experience, glaring at them won’t make them jump off the plate and vanish into thin air,” Daddy chuckled at the scowl I gave him. “Go on. Get it over with.”

I pinched the smallest offender between my index finger and thumb to get a better look at my opponent. The melted butter oozed off of it and down my fingers as I stared at it. I supposed the people who decided to eat brussel sprouts detested them as much as I did. They must have decided to mask the taste with butter and salt. In my opinion, their solution didn't work. The slimy, buttery blob squelched between my teeth and slowly, very slowly slid down my throat to it's final resting place. It tasted like feet smelled. How that was possible—I didn’t know and had no desire to know. One by one, they went down until the fifth and final one stopped me and it watched as my expression shifted from displeasure to as much hatred as was possible to have towards one little vegetable.

“Come on, Flower. It’s the last one,” Daddy tried to encourage me as I looked at it and saw how it sat on that Dixie plate looking as miserable as I felt.

I waited.

And waited. I refused to offend my taste buds anymore with that garbage called food. “Daddy,” I pleaded, “do I have to?” My voice was whiny, but I didn't care—I was fighting to stay alive by refusing that green orb of poison.

Daddy popped the remaining green monster into his mouth and ate it without so much as a tiny grimace, “All done,” he announced. He picked up the now empty plate and gave me a conspiratorial wink as I silently cringed at the gusto with which he ate a green demon—excuse me—brussel sprout.

“Thanks, Daddy,” I smiled.

“No problem, Flower,” he snatched a cookie and left as quickly as he had come.

For me, that settled it. Daddy was awesome. I collapsed back onto the tree house floor while imagining a single brussel sprout on an interrogation table and me in a chair. I thought I might spill the beans at the first glimpse of a mini cabbage. I’d have to work up my tolerance level soon.

 Out in the tree house, time passed quickly as hummingbirds fluttered their wings. Daddy’s original reason for calling me Flower had gotten blurred over the years, but looking at the vibrant green leaves made me remember something Daddy always said: “April showers bring May flowers.” He always said that when he saw the little white blooms in the backyard. Mama called it baby’s breath, but I thought that was an odd name because I never thought it smelled like baby’s breath. It smelled like sunshine to me.

The world went quiet and the freedom of summertime pulled me in. Summer meant long days to waste in my tree house and steak on the grill and pointless thoughts like wondering if starfish pee. It was lime popsicles freezing slowly, the battle between AC and heat, and lemonade with buckets of sugar. Summer was a time for family and joy and nonsensical thoughts that made you laugh. Of course, there was some sweat, but that’s Texas for ya. These three months of the year were filled with cookies and perfectly made grilled cheeses, but they also had sweltering heat and little green brussel sprouts that smelled like feet. All the little imperfect moments made everything else shine brighter than a starry sky in my memory.

Sounds of life faded back in and I realized flowers and sunburns, starfish and sweat were all parts of me I wouldn’t give up for the world—not even if I was threatened with a whole truckload of those green abominations of food.

I was grinning like an idiot and thinking about brussel sprouts—which were definitely becoming the bane of my existence—when I ate another one of Mrs. Ozan’s cranberry-white-chocolate-chip cookies while I waited for the next moment of summer.