Comment: Snacktastic

There used to be a snack mix in Canada called Bits n Bites. In French, it was called Meli Melo (there are supposed to be accents on both e’s but of course I don’t know how to do them.) (If this were a computer in Quebec, it would be under arrest. Ha!)

The closest the US comes to this savory treat is Chex snack mix. But there’s a certain taste to BnB that I think if I tasted some of it now, I’d be lurched back into time when I used to bring it for snack at recess in elementary school. Buffy L. would always expect me to share it with her, even though her family had more money. (They had a tree house WITH a trapdoor AND the first microwave in the neighbhorhood. ) But somehow Buffy determined that my snack was her snack. It bugged me, but I wasn’t very good at saying no in those days.

It should come as no surprise to you that her favorite game to play with me was “Queen and Servant.” And who do you suppose I got to play? Damn, she was a bossy girl. Whenever my two neighbors and I played school, I always wanted to be the teacher, sure, so I know from bossy. But she took the cake. Literally. (I mean it, she hogged everything.)

Many many years later, I ran into her at a party in another city completely randomly. I had absolutely nothing to say to her face, but inside, I was wondering: is she still as spoiled and bossy or did she outgrow that? Does she remember hogging my snack? Does she remember following me home and lying, claiming that her grandmother wasn’t home to take care of her after school so she HAD to come to my house? (She wasn’t above a pity playdate.) I wonder about her. She’s probably on Facebook, but I don’t want to know that badly.

Which reminds me of another memory: Kent H. spat in my face on the bus when I was in kindergarten. It was humiliating, and there was no provocation. He was just an asshole, I guess.

But we ended up going to high school together, and as our paths crossed in the school play one year, I told him that I remembered that he’d spit on me all those years ago. He was mortified. He actually turned out to be a pretty nice guy in the end.

So maybe there’s hope for Buffy, and all the other meanish kids who badger or torment us when we’re small. Maybe we can outgrow some of our character defects. That's hopeful.

But nowadays, I share my snack mix with my kids. They don’t hog it.