I looked at myself in the Reading Room mirror.
Huh.
I kinda look like My Sister, the Gerbil. Not the Sister Here, who lives in our little Town in the Woods. That's "Ol' Football Head", which of course is story fodder for another time.
Sister There, who lives in, on, and around the perpetual cityscape known as the East Coast was, at one time, The Gerbil.
She doesn't look like a gerbil now. But she did almost fifty years ago.
For one evening specifically.
We're seated around that antiquated idea of a kitchen table and family mealtime.
The key ingredient of this story is corn.
My sister didn't like corn.
Born and raised in Iowa and she didn't like corn.
There are probably people in Hersey, PA that don't like chocolate.
And people find them weird, too.
Anyway, the table ultimatum from decades of parents wafted over the table to the pouting face of Sister There.
"You're not leaving this table until that corn is gone."
And, of course, the age-old justification for this punishment followed immediately.
"There are starving kids in (pick a Third World country du jour)."
I had once brought up the quick observation that instead of eating it, the despised substance should be bagged, tagged, and mailed to those starving kids.
I haven't done that again. Ever.
Sister There was nothing if not persistent. Or pig-headed and stubborn, depending which side of the coin you were looking at.
She was left sitting at the kitchen table while the family moved into the living room. We settled in around the black-and-white TV. After awhile, Mom got up to check on Sister There.
The plate was clean. Mom checked the floor and the garbage for evidence. Finding none, she paroled the kid to the living room.
A little while later, Mom got up and stretched.
"Who wants a snack?"
A chorus of affirmation rang out from everyone but Sister There.
Mom looked at her.
"Don't you want something, honey?".
"Mmm-unh."
"Are you okay?"
"Mmm-huh."
The parental radar goes off.
"Do you have something in your mouth?"
"Mmm-unh."
"Open your mouth. Now."
"MMM-UNH."
As Mom moved towards the kitchen for The Strap, Sister There had the good sense to know the jig was up.
Like a grade school version of the Biblical Whale, she opened her mouth to spew out, not Jonah, but the Green Giant and his golden niblets.
Man.
I sit back to look out the window with a self-righteous smile.
My reflection looks back and faintly, very faintly, I hear its response.
I hafta frown,self-righteous no longer.
Yeah, it must be hereditary.
I hold things inside, bad things that the Book calls Sin.
Walking around with them, not letting them go, even sitting down with them in Church.
Not letting go.
Not giving in.
Then He stands by me, patiently waiting, holding me in His gaze.
Cough it up.
Get it out.
You need to.
We can't move on until you do.
Huh.
We all play The Gerbil sometimes, eh?
Yeah.
And that little wheel where we run flat-out boogity-boogity-boogity and never get anywhere?
Well, that's a story for another time.
Just like "Ol' Football Head".