memory

Okay Liz:  Thanks for the inspiration.  I have to put in a disclaimer here:  I wrote this in one hour.  It was fun.  I want to go back and clean it up and maybe even do the assignment from the current perspective.  :)

We’re going over to Susan’s house today.  Mi-Yong, Sang-Yong, and me.  It’s fun when we go there.  We get to eat American food and speak English.  I can’t understand everything.  Sometimes Susan points at things and says words I’ve never heard before.  But there are words I know like, “my mom,” and “my dad.”  But Susan calls her mom’s husband “Terry” because she says that she already has a real dad.  I think it’s weird to call an adult by his first name.  And to have two dads.      

My aunt and Terry have a camper in their back yard.  It’s like a little house that they can put on top of the truck when they go camping.  But today it’s on the grass, and me, my sister, brother, and cousin go in there and pretend it is our house.  I always end up playing the kid.  We get bored so we decide to pick lemons and avocados.  I like to scratch the skin of the lemon.  It smells good.  It’s funny you can’t smell that it is sour.  The avocados are weird.  I don’t think anyone will buy them, but my aunt says she has too many and that we can keep all the money we make.  We fill up two big  brown shopping bags.  They are so heavy that we have to put them on an old wagon.  I think the wagon used to be red because I can see some paint, but most of it is now brown.  It reminds me of chalk. If I rub my hands on it, my fingers look like they are covered in dirt.    I want to pull the cart, but Susan and Mi-Yong say they get to do it because they are the oldest.  Susan points to me and my brother and and then again to the wagon.  This makes my brother go crazy.  He jumps up and down.  I’m excited too, but I don’t want to act like a 4 year old, so I just push the heavy bags carefully to one side so the lemons and avocados don’t roll out.  Sang Yong & I get in the wagon, and my sister and Susan take turns pulling while the other pushes from behind.  

It’s a good thing Susan is in the 1st grade because even though my sister is one year older she isn’t that good with her English and American money.  Susan writes “5 for 15 cents” in big, black letters on the paper bag.  We can’t believe how many people stop their cars to buy from us instead of from that fancy market down the street.  We sell all the lemons and almost all the avocados, but we’re so excited by the coin Sang-Yong shakes in the coffee can that we stop and run to the small store at the end of the street.  My sister gets cherry Pop Rocks, but I’m too scared of them.  I don’t want my mouth to explode.  My sister tells me it’s only dangerous if I put it in Coke.  I pick grape flavored Zotz and Wacky Wafers.  We go back to the house. We find a big blanket and lay it on the grass.  We lay side by side on our bellies.  We eat our candies. I dream about what I am going to get next.