Saturday, April 23, 2011

Are We Lost?

This was the other truth I was going to post in my Lies and Propaganda post from all the way back when, but I had forgotten about it until later. Ah, well, at least it gets to star in its own post!

When I was six, my relatives on my mom's side who lived in Florida came over to visit. They will from now until the end of this post be called Nanima (my grandma--a.k.a. my mom's mom), Nanaba (my grandpa--my mom's dad), Mamoo (my uncle--my mom's brother), Mami (my aunt--Mamoo's wife), Aunty (my mom's sister), Annoying Cousin Sister (Aunty's daughter), and Adorable Cousin Brother (Annoying Cousin Sister's brother). Annoying Cousin Sister definitely isn't annoying anymore, but back when she was four, she was a brat and a pain in the butt. Adorable Cousin Brother is still cute, but he doesn't talk to me or my sister anymore, preferring instead to play his video games.

One day, the whole family decided to go to the Indian stores. Annoying Cousin Sister wanted to sit next to me, so I begged to sit in the front, since I'd be able to avoid her. Two people can't sit in the front seat, after all, right? (Of course, I failed to note that, to sit in the front, a person had to be over twice my age, but who cares?)
(The people in the back of the van were left out for easier drawing.)
In retrospect, I'm surprised that no police officer at least warned us about the illegality of seating two children far younger than 12 in the front seat.

Throughout the ride to the stores, I was miserable. Annoying Cousin Sister annoyed me very much, but she loved to stay with me for some reason, which made me more annoyed, so, even though she was very much delighted at the prospect of still sitting next to me, she still irritated me. Needless to say, I was glad when we had reached the Indian stores and were able to get out of the cars, and I made sure that I would be in the car instead of the van when we were ready to go back home.

What happened in the Indian stores is of no importance to this story, so I'll just skip over that. You can imagine what you'd like. Maybe we just went shopping, or maybe we got attacked by ninja polar bears with nukes. YOU WILL NEVER KNOW. >:-D

Mamoo drove the car, and I got to sit in the front again while Mami, Nanima and Nanaba stayed in the back. I was enjoying the peace and quiet of the car when Mamoo suddenly said, "We're lost, Sana. Do you know how to get home from here?"

Now, Mamoo was the type of uncle who always joked around. Whenever I visited Florida, for instance, he would always tell me that Best Friend (my best friend back then, obviously) had mysteriously turned into a boy.
I never did quite know how to disprove Mamoo's silly idea that Best Friend had turned into a boy, so I just stammered something incoherently.

So, I didn't believe Mamoo when he said we were lost, since I thought it was just another joke. He was smiling, too! Anyone who was really lost would be panicking, but the worry was not visible on Mamoo's face. But I decided to play along anyway and show Mamoo that I knew how to get to my house like a big girl.

We were fairly close to my house, anyway, so getting there was an easy task. "Just go straight...now go across the Bridge [the Bridge is capitalized because it was the only bridge that I knew of in my city that went over a freeway]. Keep going straight. Okay, now turn left. Keep going straight again, and now turn right! Keep going straight...and there's my house!"

Mamoo thanked me and we all got out of the car. The rest of the family was already at home, looking concerned for some reason.

(Actually, the way I drew my mom's hair is probably more like how my hair really is now, but it's too much effort drawing my hair like that all the time. Besides, it doesn't really matter for this story, since my hair as a child was way straighter than it is now.)

6 comments:

  1. Meep. I understand the annoying cousin thing. I just got back from my cousins' house. There are 5 of them, and the youngest is 4 years old and I can't STAND her.
    Everytime we'd get in the car, she'd scream, "I wanna sit by Zehwa baji!" And I'd be like "Umm....noo...I'll sit by Nabeeha, thanks." and my mom would interject and say "Zehra, just sit next to the poor child! See how much she loves you?"
    The entire hour long car ride, she wouldn't stop TOUCHING me. Poking, pulling my earrings, squeezing my nose. And the more I'd tell her to stop, the more she'd do it. Then she'd start singing Barney songs in an obnoxiously loud voice. And when I'd tell her to stop, or at least sing quietly, she'd scream, "YOU'RE A POOPY!"

    Then, one day, I discovered she had a weakness. She hated losing. A "loser," to her, was the worst thing anyone could be.
    So I made the statue game.
    If you talked, moved, breathed too loudly, or did anything to annoy Zehra, you were a loser. The biggest, loserest, most pathetic loser in the world. All the losers in the world would laugh at your loserness.
    She took that game seriously.
    Very seriously indeed.

    And the car was silent.
    Very silent.

    Heh. Hehe. Hehehe. >:)

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  2. Hahahhaa! You always make me smile. :D

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  3. @Zehra: Whoa, making up the "statue game" was a really smart move! I wish I had been that smart as an six-year-old...actually it probably wouldn't have worked. I dunno what Annoying Cousin Sister's weakness was.

    @Gabi: Thank you!

    @Jessica: Thank you! :)

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  4. my sister is 12 so I don't remember anything from a while ago. But now she tries to steal MY coveted front seat position, when I am clearly older, more mature, and more awesome and deserving of it. And she has no weaknesses...

    Except yesterday she gave me a giany ceramic dinosaur she made in art class, so now its all good

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  5. @flyergirl: My sister tries to do that, too! SHE CANNOT SIT IN THE SEAT THAT IS FOR ME. BECAUSE IT IS FOR ME. Besides, she's only 11.
    I probably should get my driver's permit, considering that most people get it when they're 15 and a half, and I'm over 16 and a half...
    Ceramic dinosaurs make up for even the worst wrongs.

    ReplyDelete

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