Surprise

For the first few years of my childhood we lived in a small white clapboard house under a freeway overpass. Mind you it was not like the colonies of homeless you see under overpasses these days camped out with cardboard boxes and signs depicting one tragedy after another that are meant to trump one another in the need department. No, but it was close enough to be considered under the overpass. No one but a starving law student, his child bride and new baby would live there and anyway our Great Dane needed room to roam.

We had one neighbor who cultivated a giant vegetable garden on the side of his house. Having only two houses on the street as well as the field of fresh veggies leant a certain rural feel to the area. If you wore ear plugs to drown out the semi trucks above, you could almost imagine living in a small farmhouse somewhere. Besides this rural feel we had BIG country size bugs. I know because one day giant flying ants attacked me in my own front yard.

My partner would interject here to inform everyone reading this that she believes there are no giant flying ants but who are you going to listen to? A woman who has never been attacked by these creatures or me who not only was attacked by them but also lived to tell the tale? This is a woman who thinks all children have worms at some time or another in their lives. I assure you I have dated a few worms but never in my life had one living inside me.

I accidentally stepped on the mound one morning which must have set off an ALL ANTS AIRBORN alarm inside. They attacked my leg like the remnants of some street festival funnel cake rotting in a gutter. I was covered from toe to knee. My parents jumped into action to rescue me and carried me inside to put medicine on the stings left behind. The only problem being that I was as terrified of the medicine as the stings and therefore proceeded to run around the house screaming.

Parental ingenuity kicked in and my parents developed a plan. So as I sat on their bed, swollen red leg propped on a throw pillow, my mother informed me my father was making some “Surprise”. This was the name they came up with for the baking soda and water paste that is supposed to remove the stinging. Fool that I am, I wanted a “Surprise” so bad I fell for the ruse hook line and sinker.