Carolyn J.
Rose
Recently Mike and I
were privileged to spend 24 hours with our five-year-old friend Tristan
Stone.
That’s when we
discovered that we’re crinkly.
Like most kids,
Tristan sometimes seems older and sometimes younger than his age. He sleeps with
a stuffed lamb and needs a little help brushing his teeth. Later he reminds Mike
to wash his hands and tells us we should drink plenty of fluids before we go to
the pool.
That’s where we found
out we’re crinkly.
Tristan informed us he
could swim by himself all over the pool. Visualizing his parents drawing and
quartering me if anything happened, I made the case for staying in the shallow
end. I made another case for one of us being by his side at all times, claiming
the lifeguards would throw us out if we weren’t.
Tristan agreed, but
told me he wouldn’t need me because he was a better swimmer. “I’m young and like
a monkey and my skin is smooth. You might sink because you’re all
crinkly.”
“Crinkly?”
“Yeah.” He pointed.
“Especially around your eyes.”
I refrained from the
snappy comebacks I employed when I was a kid, world-class insults like: “Your
mother wears combat boots.” or “Your father voted for Nixon.” I also refrained
from sticking out my tongue because that would only create more
crinkles.
After all, Tristan was
just stating the obvious. Like it or not, I’m 67. And I’m
crinkly.
