Now, often I wonder if there is some universal law that sets me up to make the same errors. Let me begin...
My dearest friend all the way back from 7th grade wanted to have a little Halloween get-together some years back. We were to go over and enjoy some delicious cornbread (my FAVORITEST thing in the world - right next to brownies, Reeses blizzards, pistachio gelato and a hot fudge sundae), soup and games.
We all sat around the table post-delicious dinner, our bellies full and happy. However, there's always room to snack on edamame's, otherwise known as soy beans. I had never before eaten these, nor did I really even know what they were at that point in time. (I'm from Idaho where every meal is potatoes. Breakfast - hashbrowns. Lunch - fries. Dinner - baked potato. Catch my drift?)
So these silly looking bean pods were almost foreign to me. In fact, if memory serves me well, I even had a hard time saying the word edamame, and thus resorted to soy bean.
The game of Killer Bunnies was our game choice for the evening. And if you know this game you may have a little chuckle at the thought of those hilarious yet cray-cray bunnies being smashed by a large bus.
There were several bowls on the table and I was so focused reading my game cards the thought had never occurred to try these new delicacies until others had well begun to devour.
"So...how do you eat these?"
My friend answered while looking at her own cards, "Just suck on them."
"Really? That's it?"
So what did I do? Next to me a bowl had several pods in them, and so I began to take pod after pod and suck on them, then discard into the empty bowl next to me. After I emptied the bowl of the pods next to me, having transferred them sucked clean to the discard bowl, I reached to the middle of the table to retrieve more.
I looked to my friend, "So...I thought these were suppose to have beans in them? Do you really just suck on the pods?"
Oh the hilarity of it all. I will tell you this. Normally, I would figure these things out well before I had sucked clean about thirty of these little beasts. However, no such luck. Just as the sunflower seeds from my previous post. This story ends much the same.
My dear friends bursts into the biggest fit of giggles. More like snortles. She was on the verge of tipping off the high chair, and falling to the floor in fetal position. Before she lost control, she said, "Have you been taking from this bowl?"
"Yes...yes I have."
"Roch!" In this point of the conversation everyone is all laughter, and I am still a wide-eyed doe in the headlights, wondering what on earth is going on. (sometimes it takes me a bit to catch up, it happens to the best, most intelligent minds, I assure you!)
"Aren't these mine to eat?"
Well, then...
I compose myself, "That's gross." My voice is flat, but inside I'm heaving. The bowl in the middle has plump pods, obviously great with seed. "So these are the ones I eat?"
"Yes, Roch. Those are the ones to eat."
Yet another hilarious 'jokes on me'. I believe I laughed it off. And...not to mention I survived yet another mix-up. Silly me.
I swear. . . the same kind of stuff happens to me. I've had several friends say, "You have the craziest things happen to you," but I've started to think that it's part of being someone who writes. Funny and strange incidents are attracted to writers like static, I think, because they offer another story to tell or another experience for the writer to use. I sometimes remind myself, after another incident, "I'm that weird 1% of the population that something crazy is going to happen to. . .but I'm going to use it in whatever way I can in writing." I loved reading this story! It made me laugh.
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