October 26, 2009

• Tea and Men

  
  Tea parties were all the rage when I was a little girl. More often than not, it was just my dolls, my stuffed animals, and I, but sometimes, other girls in the neighbourhood would bring their dolls and stuffed animals. My mother usually made an appearance. Once in a while, my Auntie V (my mother’s sister) would come.

  I had many tea sets: solid pink, pink and white stripes, white with pink flowers, white with blue-purple flowers, solid lavender… all plastic, of course. I spent hours making “doilies” with construction paper and little scissors. My mom and I would bake teeny tiny (“ladylike”) cookies, usually peanut butter or chocolate chip; they were placed atop the doilies. When I got an E-Z-Bake Oven, little cakes were added to the menu. My mother would make real (iced) tea and pour it into whatever teapot I was using that day (the teapot always matched the cups and saucers, of course!).

  When I think now about the conversations we had at those tea parties, I cannot help but smile. I especially remember one tea with my Auntie V in attendance. The main discussion was Everything That’s Wrong With Boys. Some of the more serious points of the conversation were: “Boys never wash behind their ears; there’s always crud back there,” “They are more likely to get cooties than girls,” and “Boys don’t stick their pinkies out when they drink tea; they’re piggies.”

  At one point, my mother joined the party. She said, “But boys are cute!”

  My aunt and I fell all over each other, squealing, “Ew!” and “Gross!” and “Yuck!”

  My mom, laughing at our antics, added, “Well, your brothers are boys… and they’re cute!”

  I answered that with a horrified scream. Everyone knew that my brothers (all four of them) got more cooties (and got them more often) than anyone else, and that they never washed behind their ears (My dad used to joke that Whoville was actually a place behind Brother #3’s left ear.).

  Some time after that, I had another tea party, and my father was able to attend. He sat between Esther (my big white stuffed bunny with the pink hat) and me. Before pouring the tea, I stood up and inspected my father’s hands, and behind his ears.

  He laughed, ducked his head and asked, “What’re you doin’, Little One?”

  I said, “Just checkin’ for crud, Daddy.”

  He snickered and asked, “Well, did you find any?”

  I said, “No, but I think you might have the beginnings of the cooties.” I sat down and poured the tea, giggling.

  My father chuckled and picked up his cup. I tugged on his pinky and said, “No, Daddy… The pinky goes out. Like this.”

  He wriggled his pinky out of my grasp and said, “Only girls do that!”

  I sighed, “Men!”

  He nearly fell out of his chair laughing.

  • 4:30 pm
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