Sharing is Caring

One thing my parents didn't focus on teaching us kids is the value of sharing. They may disagree, but I don't believe I was raised to think that "what's mine is yours."

The best example of this is the Spirograph. My sister had a Spirograph and I envied it. In fact, there were a few times that I would sneak into her closet where she stashed it and created wonderful geometric designs with it. She ALWAYS knew when I had done this. I don't know how, but apparently when I held the pen to the Spirograph wheels, I occasionally got ink on them.

When I was in 3rd grade I had two teeth pulled. The brilliant dentist thought that if he pulled the two, crooked baby teeth that perhaps when the permanent ones grew in they would miraculously grow in straight (he clearly had problems grasping a few dental concepts). Anyway, CCC said she'd ALLOW me to play with her Spirograph when I got home from the dentist. Wow. This was one of the best things to happen to me since... I don't know, since cotton candy!

I got home from the dentist, two enormous cotton bits stuffed in the space that used to be my teeth. All I could think about was playing with the Spirograph! I was
exhausted, in pain, on pain killers (that surely made me sleepy) and yet I HAD to sit at the dining room table and play with the Spirograph because I had permission!! So, with blood dripping off my chin, with my eyes and my head drooping on the table, there I was spinning the plastic discs and making wonderful patterns on my piece of paper.

My sister cringes when she hears me tell of that story, she thinks it's about her being a mean older sister. I find it an amusing anecdote of our sisterhood during our our shared childhood.

The other incident that reminds me of sharing and how that was not something that was impressed up on me is something that happened to me on Halloween.

I had a Halloween party. I'm sure I begged my mother for weeks about having a party. My birthday was in the summer, so I sometimes (rarely) found excuses to have a party during the year. This Halloween party was the BEST! My mother had gone all out... she put together all these props to tell me and my guests a ghost story. She peeled grapes to mimic eye balls, spaghetti to mimic intestines (or something like that) and I don't know what else. What a mom! I mean, seriously, She PEELED GRAPES!! It was a fabulous party, my friends where there, mom told us a ghost story in the basement of 628 and passed around her props. We trick-or-treated the neighborhood and then I went with my friend Cindy to her neighborhood to get more candy goods! As we were leaving one house, two teen-age boys (aka giants),leaped out of the bushes and stole my plastic pumpkin filled with my candy booty from the evening! I clutched the pumpkin as if it were the only valuable thing I owned!! But, alas, they won and took off down the street with my candy. I was left with bloody fingers and tears strolling down my
face.

Since we were just a few houses down from Cindy's house, we went there immediately. What amazed me is that Cindy and her two sisters, without hesitation, filled a bag of candy from their own booty just for me. That stopped my tears as I stared in awe at their lack of selfishness for hoarding their candy for themselves! It actually made
me feel better.

Maybe there is something to this sharing thing...

Happy Halloween!!