This Weeks Very Short Story: Chapter 10

This Weeks Very Short Story: Chapter 10

My younger son was always competitive.  Most people think it was all the sports he played, playing baseball, football and basketball in high school.  No, it started much earlier.  In second grade, he competed in reading with a classmate for the highest color and level of reading assignments.  He did get ahead when she went out of the country for an extended vacation with her parents.  

My college roommate in San Francisco was born in California.  In Michigan when it gets cold, you turn up the heat.  So when it got cold in San Francisco, I would turn up the heat. He would turn it down. He would tell me to have a cup of coffee or put on a sweatshirt. That was our dance.  I have now lived in California long enough that I now put on a sweatshirt.    

Awhile back we were moving out an oak entertainment center that we had for many years. I never realized that over the years that the entertainment center gained weight just like I had. 

As a freshman in college living in Akers Hall at Michigan State, someone had this crazy idea to gather up all the toilet paper in the dorm. The next idea was to spike the chocolate milk with Ex-lax.  I don’t think they ever went ahead with that part.   Someone should look under the closed cupboard next to the sink in the common room,  on the first floor and see if there is a bunch of old toilet paper, though.

I started cooking when I was in college.  I cooked for my roommates too.  Early on I found that I liked cooking better than cleaning up.  Once my roommates got tired that I did not have to clean up and they decided to make me dinner so that I had to clean up.  They cooked hotdogs and beans.    

One of my first dishes that I started cooking in college was spaghetti with meat sauce.  Just like my Italian mother taught me.  

In East Lansing during college there was a restaurant that had a salad bar where you could eat as much as you could on one plate, one time through.  The engineering students would have been proud of the way we were able to stack the plate at least 6-7 inches high with no spilling over.  

I am so old that I remember when the Big Ten actually had 10 teams.  

I am so old that I remember when the legal drinking age was 18.  

I am so old that I remember that we had to walk to school and home through the snow and there were no line up of minivans or SUV’s dropping off or picking up the other children. 

I am so old that I remember paying 19 cents a gallon for gas in Oak Park and that I would not go across the street into Detroit and pay 17 cents because I did not trust the station.   

One day when I was leaving work, I said have a great evening to another leaving employee.  She replied that this is the best time of the day.  I thought about that and now realize that the best time of the day is when you wake up in the morning.