I Want A Pop

As you know by now, growing up my parents always took us on some sort of vacation. As you are also aware, my participation was not always looked upon as gracious.

But I wasn’t always bad.

A couple of times, my parents rented a little, little beach house down in Newport Beach.

Little. But cute! It had two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and bathroom. It was on the side with the waves.

On that side there was a big long boardwalk. All along the boardwalk, were shops and restaurants. My mom would let me walk up and down it. Sometimes, my dad would take me to the pizza place. I thought it was cool because 1.) you could go in there barefooted and in your bathing suit and 2.) because everything was up high and my dad had to lift me to get on the chairs. You could order pizza by the slice and dad would get me a slice and orange soda and him two slices and a beer.

Back then my mom would drink Shasta…you remember the commercial for that…I wannna POP, I wanna SHASTA. I wanna taste PIZZAZ. All the great taste a SHASTA has. This vacation she stocked the fridge with them. They had ever flavor under the sun. And at night, she would let Jeff and I split one with dinner.

I don’t know who I was driving crazy this day. It could have been Jeff, but it was probably her. Jeff seemed to make friends easily and for me it was harder. I expected mom to play me and more than once was told “I was not put on this earth to entertain you.” So she gave me some money and told me I could walk ALL BY MYSELF to the liquor store and get myself some candy. Did I mention this was all by myself? Jeff wasn’t with me at all. Nope. I was flying solo.

And off I went, money in hand.

I got there and looked at everything I could buy and decided on a grape Whistle Pop. Clearly, I had got the best of both worlds. Not only was it a delicious candy, it was a loud ass whistle too! Proud of my purchase, I began my journey back to the beach house. There I was happily walking down the boardwalk sucking and blowing, blowing and sucking on my ever so wonderful CANDY WHISTLE!

I got back and walked through the door announcing my arrival with a long and loud blow on that whistle and was promptly told to either eat it or throw it away, but sure as hell, don’t blow that whistle anymore.

And I was so happy because I got to go all by myself without Jeff and get some candy! This was the best vacation ever!