In a Nutshell

Only two days left in July's firstlinefiction contest. I've had my entry written for about three weeks, and turned in for about one week, but I'm still second guessing myself a little bit. I don't know why this is exactly; I'm hoping it's because I've been thinking about it for so long that I'm simply getting paranoid. No matter, though. There is not much of a chance that I'll find time to change anything in the next two days: I'm absolutely busy between dentist trauma on Monday and work on Tuesday.

Today I was randomly remembering an incident that happened at a long ago Christmas party, and I thought I'd share it with you.

Like I said, I was at a Christmas party, and I was eating nuts out of a dish sitting on the festively-decorated table. Only, I wasn't eating all the nuts. There was quite a variety in the dish; macadamias and almonds and some unidentifiable ones as well, and, being eight years old or so, I was skillfully avoiding all of the gross nuts and picking out the cashews. I wasn't doing this ridiculously, I didn't think; there were still plenty of cashews left for the other finicky children (and adults). I was surprised, then, when all of the sudden my grandpa came over and scolded me harshly for only taking cashews. I remember I started crying because I was embarassed and because grandpa had never yelled at me like that before.

Later he pulled me aside and said that he was sorry, but that Carolyn (married to my aunt's brother) had been glaring at me and was clearly upset at my nut dish pickings. I forgave grandpa, of course; he was really just trying to warn me to stop before Carolyn (who I didn't know very well) felt compelled to come over and tell me off.

And you know what? To this day, I don't like Carolyn very much at all. I haven't seen her in a few years, but I've always thought that someone stingy enough to get upset about a little kid sorting through a nut dish isn't someone I want to associate with.

It's funny how impressionable you are as a kid, and how some grudges, no matter how trivial, never really leave you.