Silly Things Saturday: The Gum in the Bush

It's Easter weekend and we are home visiting, so this will be a quick one.

Punky's aunt P was great at playing the annoying little sister role when we were kids.  Okay, she still has her moments...  Anyway, one story that has been retold over and over through the years involves bubble gum and a bush along the driveway.

When we were in elementary school, mom usually had supper ready as soon as we got off the school bus.  My sister was always starving and could eat grown men under the table.  Once when we had a snow day off of school, she decided to write down everything she ate that day and it filled two and a half pages in a spiral notebook.  Oddly enough, she was a tiny, little stick straight up until she had her son in her late twenties.  Prior to that, she had no butt, no boobs, no belly...just a bean pole with feet.

At any rate, the minute the bus driver opened the door in front of our house, she was salivating and ready to eat.  The walk across the driveway to the door took a whole five seconds.  For whatever reason, she couldn't wait to make it in the house before ditching her gum in preparation for supper.  The bushes along the driveway became her dumping ground, though I never saw her do it.  She was a quick little shit...

After a few weeks of her habit building up, my dad noticed the multicolored speckles that adorned the row of bushes.  He quickly determined it was chewing gum...and promptly sent my sister and I out to pick it all off the branches.

I knew I didn't do it and thought he was being totally unfair.  At the same time though, she swore she didn't do it, and since I never saw her do it I was gullible enough to believe my sweet, little sister.  At that age, I'm not sure exactly where I thought it was coming from...passing cars perhaps?  Boys in the neighborhood being jerks?  Adults said no, but maybe gum could actually grow on trees...

We were out there picking chewed gum out of the bushes more often than I care to remember.  Dad said that until one of us confessed, we both had to do it.  I felt so strongly that we were suffering a great injustice at the time.  One day the gum stopped appearing in the bush.  No more speckles.  No more gross gum picking.  All was forgotten for years.

We were in our twenties and out on our own when the 'gum in the bush' days came up in conversation.  My sister blatantly gloated about how it was her all along and I had to help her clean it up every time.  Little witch.  And to think I believed her back then.  I defended her and said it couldn't have have been her because I would've seen her do it.  Cleaning up gooey, chewed gum was disgusting.  She still owes me big time for that.  Brat.

I did cut all her barbies' hair though, so I guess maybe we're even.