Penpal
There was a comment in the last post that made me remember an event from my childhood that I always took as odd but never considered it to be penfriend to any of these stories. I know now that it is. It's funny how memories work. The details might all be present in your mind, though scattered and disarrayed, and then a single thought can stitch them back together almost instantly. I never thought of these events much language excjhange I was focused on the wrong details. I went back to my mom's house and went through my old childhood school work looking for something that I think is important. I couldn't find it, but I'll keep looking. Again, sorry for the length.On the third day, he arrived at a spot that he could not level. Each time he'd drive over it, it would remain lower than all the surrounding land. Frustrated, he got off the machine to survey the area. He was tempted to simply pack more dirt into the depression, but he knew that would only be an aesthetic and temporary solution. He had worked construction for meet world and knew that root systems from large trees that had been recently cut down would often decompose, leaving weaknesses in the soil that would manifest as weaknesses in the foundations above. He weighed his options and elected to dig a little with a shovel in case the problem was shallow enough to fix without needing a machine that would have to be brought over from another site. And as my mother described where this was, I knew I had been at that spot both before the soil was broken and before it had been filled in.
When she arrived she found Josh’s dad sitting perfectly still with his back to the hole. He was holding the shovel so tightly it seemed that it snail mail snap, and he was staring straight ahead with eyes that looked as lifeless as a shark's. He wouldn't respond to any of her words, and only reacted when she tried to gently take the shovel from him.
She followed that with an extremely prolonged and excruciating kiss on my forehead that transformed the group's bewilderment into hysteria. They were all laughing so it could have been any of them, but Mike seemed to be laughing the hardest. To become a participant rather than the subject of the gag, I said to him that just because he had given me that card he shouldn't think that I'd kiss him later. We all laughed, and as I looked at Josh I saw he was finally smiling.
On the first day of Kindergarten my mother had elected to drive me to school; we were both nervous and she wanted to be there with me all the way up to the moment I walked into class. It took me a bit longer to get ready in the morning due to my still-mending arm. The cast came up a couple inches past my elbow which meant that I had to cover the entire arm with a specially-designed latex bag when I showered. The bag was built to pull tight around the opening in order to seal out any water that might otherwise destroy the cast. I had gotten really adept at cinching the bag myself; that morning, however, perhaps due to my excitement or nervousness, I hadn't pulled the strap tight enough and halfway through the shower I could feel water pooling inside the bag around my fingers. I jumped out and tore the latex shield away, but could feel that the previously rigid plaster had become soft after absorbing the water.
