You ever think about random things?

Like today at work, I started thinking about the most random thing.

I saw some dude carrying a six pack of Ale-8. If you don’t know, I’m from Kentucky, and Ale-8 is, to some, a state treasure. I’m not a fan, but if this says anything, my dad put it in my nephew’s baby bottle. I mean he was old enough but still.

Anyway I saw that dude carrying that six pack, and I thought, “that’s a good alternative.” You know, to alcohol. I don’t have anything against anyone who drinks. I just think that it can make smart people do stupid things, and can become a problem for some.

He was carrying that, and I remembered the most obscure random memory I haven’t thought about in ages.

One time, my mom came home from grocery shopping and I guess my brother had been asking her to buy beer? And I remember he was showering and she brought home a six pack of Ale-8. And I thought it was so funny that she’d want to go in there and tell him she got him a six pack, and trick him, that I followed her through the house to hear his reaction.

Oh to go back in time and relive the days when something some simple could bring me joy.

And then something else made me think of that golden time, just after I graduated college, and before I got married. My then boyfriend had proposed to me with a Nintendo DS, and a few months later, for my birthday, he got me a new game, Mario Party. I took a picture of us with a digital camera, sitting on the couch. I can remember the shirt I was wearing, what my hair and glasses looked like. We were just hanging out at my house (before I moved out of my parents’ house) and just each other’s company.

Oh, and those times my sister and I would just start laughing and we couldn’t stop, and we’d get so loud that in the next room that dad would yell at us to be quiet. But we couldn’t stop and tears were rolling and it just made us laugh harder.

Or that time it was just me and mom, and we sat with a jar of Lay’s Ranch Dip, not long after it was first available and we’d sit and enjoy that dip and watch tv together. Or when we house sat for neighbors when they went to the beach (and took my sister). Or when I’d spend the night with her when she stayed with the elderly bedridden woman, she took care of

Sometimes I think about all these memories and feel happy. Sometimes I’m sad. Sometimes I wonder if there will be any memories like these for my child, memories that make her happy and sad and long for simpler days. Or will they just all be iPad this and iPad that? Or will there be “mommy was at work so daddy took me to the park.”

She’s under ten, so maybe the lasting memories haven’t been made yet. But what if when they are made, my body has finally said, “You’ve ignored my warning signs for too long, I’m useless now and cannot be repaired.” Then the memories will be tainted with me being more broken and tired than I am now.

What are some of your core memories? Memories that make you a little happy and a little sad at the same time?

I’m really trying to engage with my readers here. I know there’s about five of you!

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