Things to Love on the Rollercoaster Ride - #2

FAMILYQUIRKS

To get a feel for my summer, you really have to get a feel for my family. Every time I come home I realize how weird we all are. But isn't everyone's family? Yes. The answer is yes, and don't think you are exempt.

Each of my family members has some funny quirks that don't always make sense to me, or that maybe made sense to me as a child but now just seem a little bit odd. Henceforth these unusual little eccentricities shall be given the title "FamilyQuirks," which is to be read as one word and can be broken down into categories such as "DaddyQuirks," "BabyBrotherQuirks" and so on...

MamaQuirks story:

Mom gets up at 5:30am every weekday morning to pack my dad's lunch and wave goodbye from the front porch. Then, at 6:00am, as often as we can manage it, she and I put on our tennis shoes and go walking. We live on a long gravel drive that is exactly 1/2 mile long, so if we go down to the stop sign and back again, we always know we've gone a mile. We usually walk two or three miles and it's a lovely way to start the morning if we have the time. Those three miles seemed longer than usual today, however, as it seems my mother has developed a new habit: rescuing EVERY live worm that she sees "suffering" in the hot sun on the gravel drive. We'll be moving briskly along at that speedwalking pace which you might have noticed I inherited in my genetic makeup, when both tennis shoes and conversations will suddenly be cut short so that my mother can bend her sweats-clad self over, scoop up a dust-covered earthworm, and toss it into the grass with a "there ya go buddy!" and well wishes on its next venture (which will, inevitably, be a journey right back into the hot gravel from whence it was "saved.") Never, mind you, did she do this when I was younger, but as she will be turning the big Five-Zero in two short years, I guess the craziness has to start somewhere! *sigh* My mama is going to be a very quirky little old lady.

Personally, I have my own theory about the little wrigglers. Pin it to my psych-minor thinking tendencies, but it seems to me that they're obviously all manic-depressive and have crawled onto the road of their own volition, desperate for the blazing sun to go ahead and put an end to it all. Hey, if you had to burrow through dirt, all day, every day, only to finally be dug up, stabbed with a giant hook and fed to a fish, you'd probably be suicidal too.