Tales From Under A Middle-Aged Colored Woman
Image via Wikipedia What Did You Do?
My son and I were in the car going to run some errands. Before we drove off the block we live on, we saw my ten year old neighbor squirting what looked like liquid lighter fluid on a fire burning in a old Weber grill. Flames flew up, and he jumped back just before the fire almost burned his little, dirt streaked face. Of course, I had to stop and see what he was doing.
I saw someone sitting on the porch and I was hoping and praying it was an adult, but it wasn't. It was a shirtless three year old girl who never made a sound. She just stared at me wide eyed with mouth open. Another boy, who appeared to be seven or eight years old, was standing at the front of the porch next to a cooler. I ran past them and told the boy to put get away from the fire. The smaller boy grinned at me.
"We are barbecuing some frogs," he said. "You wanna see?"
With pride and he opened the cooler. It was full of water and live turtles and frogs.
"Where are your parents?" I asked.
"We won't start a fire if you don't want us to," said the ten year old seriously.
The little shirtless girl had quietly walked off the porch, and stood next to the cooler watching.
"Put out the fire," I said.
The ten year old went to the side of the house and got the water hose. He squirted the grill until the coals were steaming with smoke.
When I got back in the car I told my waiting son what had happened. He laughed.
I frowned and groaned inwardly. "What did you do that I don't know about?"
Then he told me a very disturbing story about one of his awful adolescent capers. Why did I ever ask?
What about you? Did you ever do anything that you look back on with disbelief? Do you wonder why you did it, and survived?
