a superstar, down to my toes

This might surprise you, but growing up with the likes of Encyclopedia Brown and the Boxcar Children, I am often drawn to look at my day through the lens of some character I used to know. It's not like I sit in a corner and say, "what would Jane Moncure have done today?" (kind of a born-out-of-my-decade WWJM?), or how would Encyclopedia get out of this one? I realize there are people like that, who vicariously and sympathetically (emphasis on pathetically) live in someone else's world, but I live with my feet firmly on the ground. My experiences are my own. I simply happen to make observations like, "Well, I remember the time when Alexander was having his horrible, no good, really bad day, and he ended up calling Amelia Bedilia to draw him some curtains and bake a pie. Frankly my thumb is in a plum on this one."

Which brings me to the event that happened yesterday in my kitchen. It was curiously representative of my childhood sister Ramona Quimby, who was the adorable character in Beverly Cleary's novels about children who frequently ask more questions than their parents can possibly answer. One such novel (which was later made famous when it became a library-only movie) had a classic chapter entitled "Ramona's Bad Day." Now I'll spare the details for those of you currently reading the book (don't want to blow the ending), but in the chapter, Ramona has to deal with the fact that she has egg yoke in her hair, and the other kids in school are making fun of her. She, in turn, has to go to the nurse (who seems to be the standard catch-all receptacle for children in need of things other than medical attention), whose job then it is to tell Ramona that egg is actually very good for your hair, and that celebrities and movie stars use it all the time to bring out the shine.

Now I say all this, because these are the things that were running through my mind yesterday while preparing to eat a tuna-on-wheat sandwich. I had poured the tuna into a bowl, chopped pickles, and was mixing in a generous portion of Miracle Whip. And I stirred, and everything was looking wonderful, and I went over to the sink to throw in my dirty spoon, when I felt something cold and unnaturally gooey on my bare foot. (Yes, I was cooking in shorts and had no shoes or socks on. What can you say, it's Barbados!)

I look down, and to my horror, there sits the largest blob of thick salad dressing I've ever seen. And my foot is right in the middle of it. And I pick it up and the whole blob comes with me. And I grab a paper towel to wipe it off. And the grease and the shine just cling to my skin. And I think, "yucky. that's sick. what am I going to do now?"

And so I do what any other vicariously opposed yet sympathically inclined follower of youthfully inquisitive literature about girls with egg in their hair would do: I said, "well, at least my feet will be shiny."