Writings

A Draft Of My Memoir

It’s always fun to play hide-n-seek with your friends, but it’s even more fun to play with your parents. Especially when you are in a store, and hide-n-seek suddenly turns into the entire store staff, security, and your parents searching for you in every nook and cranny of the building. What makes it even more exciting is when you are stuck with your nagging, annoying four-year-old brother who is more worried about finding his watermelon lollipop he dropped over in the home décor department than anything else.

June 4, 1998 – 10:30 AM

It was a humid, almost miserable and unbearable day. My mom made plans to take my brother and I to the store to shop for some new summer clothes. Of course, neither of us wanted to go because we wanted to stay at home and play outside. Mom knew the fix to this problem though – she gave us each a watermelon lollipop (our favorites!). At last, mom got us in the car after about ten minutes of yelling, screaming, kicking, and struggling and we were finally on our way to the store.

June 4, 1998 – 10:45 AM

In the car, I began thinking about how I could get back at my horrible, mean mom for taking my brother and I away from all of our toys on this gorgeous summer day. As I began to devise a plan, I turned to my brother (whispering, of course) and began mapping out what we would do once we got to the store.

“Nathan, we hafta figure outta way to get back at mom for this!”

“Huh?”

“She took us away from all our toys just to take us shopping – for clothes!”

“I know.. she’s so mean. I hate her!”

“Me too. When we get to the store, we’ll figure out what to do!”

June 4, 1998 – 11:10 AM

“We’re finally here! I hope you two are ready for a fun day of finding some new clothes!” As we pull into the parking lot, I see it is pretty much empty except for a few cars here and there. I knew it was going to be just a horrible day when all of the other kids got to be at home, playing with their toys, while Nathan and I had to come clothes shopping.

My mom pulls into a parking spot and gets out of our minivan to help my brother and I out of the car. We unbuckle and hop out the door, and begin approaching the big double doors. As we are walking, I am still trying to convince my mom to not put us through this torture.

“Mommmmm, do we really have to go shopping? I wanna go out and play!”

“Yes, Alex. We do. Now quit complaining.”

“But Mom, I…”

“Alex, what did I just tell you?”

(long, exaggerated sigh) “Whatever, Mom.”

June 4, 1998 – 11:20 AM

And so, our shopping begins. Now just let me tell you a little something. When my mom goes shopping for “clothes”, she really goes shopping for anything and everything. Finally, my brother and I begin the long trek through each and every department of the store. While we are looking at some new decorations for home, I again begin thinking about what to do to get back at my mom for dragging us along on this trip. Suddenly, I came up with a brilliant plan! I would play in the store since I couldn’t play outside. Now, the question was… what to play? Tag? Simon Says? No, neither of those sounded too great. I decided to ask Nathan if he had any ideas (asking a four-year-old for suggestions is not a great place to start, but hey, I needed the help!).

“Psst. Nathan, whaddya wanna do? I’m bored.”

“I dunno…nothin’.”

“Nathan, we have to do something! I can’t keep  looking at all this stuff!”

“How ‘bout hide-n-seek?”

“Yes! Let’s do it!”
“Okay I wanna hide and you can find me!”
“No, how about this. Let’s hide from Mom and make her come find us since she made us come shopping with her!”

“I dunno… I think she is gonna get even more mad at us.”

“Oh, shut up Nathan! You’re coming with me, NOW!”

And so, we had a plan. Now, we just had to find the perfect time to sneak away…

June 4, 1998 – 11:40 AM

And you guessed it, the perfect time eventually came. My mom was looking at some curtains for our house. She needed assistance from an employee, so she told us to stay right where we were and where she could see us while she was talking. Well she must have forgotten about us being there, because she turned around to look at some curtains behind her. Of course, this was a HUGE mistake. I turned to my brother, grabbed his nubby little arm, and ran!

“Nathan, let’s go! Now’s our perfect time to get away!”

(sucking on his lollipop) “O.K.!”

And so we were off on our wild adventure through the store to find the perfect hiding spot.

June 4, 1998 – 11:50 AM

            Out of breath and restless, we made our way towards the toy section. At this point, I didn’t know where to go. Nathan was now complaining about losing his “watermelon lolly” and “missing mommy”, so all I wanted to do at this point was hide somewhere. All of a sudden, I found the perfect place to hide.  I saw a shelf full of toys and behind it there was a little nook that we could crawl behind. I grabbed my brother’s arm and dragged him behind the shelf, pulling some of the toys around us to help hide us better.