Tomorrow our memoir class resumes after a holiday hiatus.  Since I needed to write a memoir, I decided to share it in my blog this evening.  Please excuse the laziness and enjoy.

A memoir about gullibility

Through the years, but especially when I was younger, I have been told that I am gullible.  In college my nickname was ‘naïve.’  In my defense, growing up in a small town (population 500) did leave my knowledge of the wide world somewhat limited.  But the incident I’m recalling today was a family moment so I can’t even blame it on my town.  I was the oldest sibling, my brother next in line was two years younger than me and delighted in teasing me.  When he was anxious for me to wake up and play one morning, he whispered in my ear “Luci, there are worms on your bed.”  He had gathered up a few earth worms from the garden and put them on my pillow.  Needless to say when I opened my eyes a little (I was trying to pretend I was still asleep) and saw what was on my pillow, I got up quite quickly.  My frequently repeated bleat of “Mom!!!” reverberated through the house once again.  But sometimes my brother’s tricks were pretty funny like the time he set the kitchen clock 20 minutes ahead so we could quit our early morning chore of weeding the strawberries.  My mother was a great believer in getting outdoor chores done ‘in the cool of the morning’ but only for an hour and then coming in for breakfast. No one notice the unauthorized time change until my father wondered aloud why the evening news wasn’t on at its usual time.  He was not amused.  But the incident that got the whole family laughing at me / with me happened on a bitterly cold winter Saturday.  My dad had decided that we needed more insulation in the attic of out old house and got my brother who was a strapping 11 year old at that point, to help him haul the rolls of insulation up the ladder and into the attic.  The only access to the attic was from an outside hatch above the back door.  While he was hauling insulation, I was helping my mother in the kitchen.  Beside the back door was our indoor/outdoor thermometer, the kind you can read from inside while the sensor is mounted outside.  We had all commented on the temperature that day which was hovering around 20 degrees.  My brother, outside on the ladder, innocently called to me “Luci, what’s the temperature?”  I glanced at the inside thermometer and said 20 degrees. No wait, it’s going up, it’s 35 degrees, 40?  50 degrees?”  It took me that long to realize that he was holding his hand against the outside sensor.  Everybody got a good laugh, even me.  Although I will admit that, just for a second there, I really thought spring was coming.