Today, I'm going to tell you the tale of one of the very few typical-of-pretty-much-everyone's-childhood stories I have.
Bee stings.
My first (and so far only) was completely avoidable and I can absolutely blame it on my older sister.
No, but like... Seriously.
Okay, not really, but I'll tell you how it all went down.
First off, my sister is almost eight years older than I am, so when I was a kid, I automatically looked up to her and wanted to do as she said, regardless of whether or not that was a good decision.
I have since learned.
Many years ago, my family was stopping by a little shop that opens in the Summer for hotdogs, ice cream, and the like.
I was looking forward to these things.
Instead, I got this.
We were standing at the top of a hill:
Now, most children do want to roll down hills.
I understand this.
I was not most children.
So, to begin with, I really just did not want to do the normal-child thing of rolling down the hill.
Grass is dirty, worms freaked me out, sometimes grass made me itchy (which got worse with age), I feared rolling right into traffic... and so on.
With some coaxing, I (for whatever reason) was convinced that doing this thing was actually a proper plan.
Much like her frustration when I was not a fluent English speaker at two years old, all she wanted was to have me experience an authentic childhood thing.
All I wanted was ice cream.
So, I roll, like any other child would have done.
And, of course, I roll over a bee.
You know, despite the literal pain in my ass, I remember being very concerned about the bee.
I pictured a bee-crime scene and I wondered if his bee family would miss him.
Perhaps they'd send the bee-bulance, but it would "bee" of no use.
I had killed him.
With my butt.
We rushed home for an embarrassing round of "Here, hold that chair while Mommy takes a tweezer to your ass,"
And I resigned myself to a life inside, forever, because screw the outside world and its hills.
In case you are on the edge of your seat wondering, yes.
Yes, I totally did get some ice cream.
