Tuesday, January 22, 2008

SUES X 2: TECHNOLOGIZED

Mom was kind enough to give A. Sue and me her time to play test case while we were working the kinks out of video chatting.

Once the video chat window was up and running, Mom wanted to see the result of the Witt’s recent kitchen remodel. So A. Sue carried her laptop around the kitchen, narrating, while mom looked on via her in-comp camera. It was Sue and Sue together again via a new mode of strangeness.



Could that air of oddity be bringing a bit of nostalgia out of me?

I remember years ago—on the day I woke up to find a brand new pair of much desired and whined for hot pink jelly shoes beside my bed waiting to surprise me, I stepped on a bee and it stung my foot. The pain and swelling occurred as is to be expected with such an event, and I wasn’t sure why; I didn’t realize I’d stomped on a not-so-innocent insect.

Mom and A. Sue, learning of my discomfort, collectively thought I must have stepped on a splinter of wood, so they each got out a sewing needle, sterilized them with matches, sat me down, and started on some tandem digging. Never one for pain in the first place—were I one for pain that would be an issue worth some looking into as well—I howled as they worked their splinter seek-and-find game in my footie. Thing is, they didn’t find, seeing as I was viciously stung by a bee in its final act of living malice and there wasn’t a splinter to seek out and purge in the first place.

I remember slipping my bleeding foot into my new jelly shoe, thinking that I never should have wanted such dumb footwear if the shoes were going to hurt this bad in the first place, and hearing my weirdo mother and weirdo aunt laughing—cause, well, what could be done now?—as I limped outside to where my sisters and cousins romped.

Throughout their whole digging expedition, there was a sense of camaraderie between mother and aunt that even my little self could sense, and I felt it again today, as they behaved like the silly geese they are.

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