I feel like I have a pretty good memory. Part of that is because I had a Peter-Pan like fear of growing up, and so I would obsessively retrace the entirety of my life when I couldn't sleep at night. Part of that is because I have a good memory.
Our house in Pennsylvania was a one-story, blue sided, white picket fenced affair with an apple tree and a swing set. There was a nice basement that had a swing and a guest bedroom. We had problems with bugs. Once we had a carpenter ant invasion, which to a 2 year old is very frightening as they were all about the size of my hand. We had giant spiders in our basement which scared the bajeezus out of V and left him with an almost funny arachnophobia.
I thought I was pretty awesome as a 2 year old. I remember one sunny, Pennsylvania day I was strolling around outside wearing this outrageously long strand of faux pearls over my spaghetti-stained jumper. I knew my Mom and her friend were outside talking. So, being all cool, I meandered around the outside of the house, just taking my time, being cute and all that. We had some tulips and I sorta just, casually pattered over to them and started smelling them. I remember how surprising it was that they had no smell and I was thinking, "Why do people grow these? They don't smell good." But, you know, I was trying to be all cute and impress my Mom and her friend, so I kept sniffing away. And then my mom's friend said, "Joy! There's a spider in that flower!". And at first I was like, "no there isn't I just looked in there", but then I was like "she's an adult why would she lie to me??" and so I spazzed out and flung myself violently away from tulip, staring at it horror.
"Oh, hahahaha! I was just kidding, Joy!" my mom's friend said.
I did not think it was funny. I was furious. I continued smelling the rest of the tulips to show that I was not afraid and then stalked away. I would not give her a hug when she left.
