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gabriel
Love and ferrets and pretending to be a writer.

2005-01-21 9:44 PM
the stolen egg

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The ferrets are: asleep

Weather: rainy, sunny, showers

Reading: Montana Sky, Nora Roberts

Knitting: a green sweater for me

One time when no one was looking I took an egg. I wasn't very old, I know that because the place I smuggled the egg to was pulled down after the Coulmbus Day storm, and that was in 1964.

I was hungry. I was hungry a lot when I was a child. There were plenty of tiems when I was full, too, but the hungry times are the ones I remember. Mom made a lot of meals that I just dind't like, and so I dind't eat a lot. I got hungry between meals and snacking was not done. Sometimes we'd get a cookie or two, but mostly not. I'm sure Mom thought she was teaching us good habits, and I'm sure she had other reasons, too; but I was hungry a lot.

I had an overactive conscience, too, which made things rough for me. I'd swipe cookies, and feel bad for a long time. Not excessively bad, just bad. And I took raisins, and they were too tasty to make me feel real bad. They were small,t oo, so I figured they wouldn't be missed. I remember one time -- and it probably happened more than one time -- Mom went to make oatmeal cookies and took down the raisin can... The raisin can used to be a coffee can, just like the crayon can used to be a coffee can. But I digress. Okay. She took down the raisin can when it was time to put the raisins in the cookie batter and there were no raisins. I don't know how she knew who to holler at, but she knew.

And one time my brothers were hungry, too. Dad must have been working a double shift because it was morning and Mom was out milking the cow. This was not her usual behavior, a thing she only did when Dad was at work when it was time to milk. My brothers were looking up at me. I was no leader as far as I can recall, but for some reason therye were looking to me for sustenance. Dan has these big brown eyes, and I couldn't stand it. Someone got out the cereal bowls, these neat heavy plastic bowls we got from grandma-in-Michigan that used to have amargarine in them and the margarine was purchased by most people to get those bowls. So there was cereal in the bowls, but there was no milk in the house -- there would be within a few minutes, obviously enough, but there wasn't any at that moment. I rummaged around and found some dried milk and read the directions on the package and was mixing it up, and making something of a mess, trying to squish the lumps of milk powder with my fingers, when Mom came in with the milk. "Couldn't you wait just a few minutes?"

"I was so hungry!" I said, and Mom repeated it back to me, with sarcasm. I was hurt and angry. It seemed to me that she would never get back and make us breakfast, and I was doing what I could. Naturally my rat fink brothers were nowhere to be seen by now.

And no, I couldn't have waited a few minutes. I never could wait a few minutes, and I am still no good at it, whether waiting for food to cook, or a raise, or a check in the mail or some man to whatever. You know?

The day I took the egg I was really hungry and there were no cookies, unless maybe there were some of the kind that I knew would have been counted, and no raisins, or maybe I'd already eaten all the raisins. More likely, I knew they were onto me. So I took an egg. I like hardcooked eggs. The window of opportunity was small as a peephole, so I moved fast, took the egg and cradled it in my hands and walked to the barn the kitchen windows burning a hole in my back. I tried to be stealthy, and probably didn't do a very good job of it.

I went to the big barn and over to the ladder to the hay loft. Now there was a problem with the egg, about how to carry it. It's hard to climb a ladder with one hand, especially when you're afraid of ladders to betgin with. I used one hand on the ladder, and one elbow. The climb took a little longer than usual, but I made it to the top. Then I sat with my stolen snack and cracked it on my knee.

Horror. It was a raw egg. The mess on my jeans and the disappointment and the hunger were painful, but also the knowledge that I had wasted food. Stolen it, and then wasted it. There was no way to eat a raw egg at all, especially when there was hay and dust in it. I was ashamed. I don't think it was the first time I ever cried over food, and I know it wasn't the last time, but it might have been the first time I felt such despair over it.

It wasn't just food, it was everything. "What's wrong, Honey?" someone asks. "Nothing. Everything." This was the first time I remmber ever feeling that. I wasn't even ten yet. I usually date my first depression to age 17, but that's not right. It was before that, a long time before.

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:: JOURNAL HOME :: SUBSCRIBE TO THIS JOURNAL :: Click on Kathy Gabriel and read my stories :: 2-in-1 Romance by me (but the back cover's misspelled!. grrrrr.) :: November is National Novel Writing Month! :: The Feel Good Manual - happiness can be learned :: Mugs with the wet ferret :: Fractured Frugal Frieds - the best frugality site around :: The ferrets, and other pics by a talented local (very local) photographer :: Kettins_Bob's journal :: Clarion SF & F writing workshop :: Genevieve's journal (Clarion classmate) :: Phil's website (Clarion classmate) :: Nnedi Okorafor's blog (Clarion classmate) :: Online magnetic poetry :: Dave's interactive html tutorial :: Make a snowflake here - WARNING: Addictive! ::