Little Victories

Dear Lady Trying to Buy An Entire House Through the 12 Items or Less Line at Stop & Shop:
  No.  No.  No.  Bad lady, bad. 

Sincerely,

Just My Soup and Me



Whitecastle is a bad Canadian.  He doesn't know that there are grades to maple syrup.  I am not a bad Canadian.  I vaguely know about grades and color.  I remembered my New England field trip to the sugar tapping place much better than he did his Canadian one.  It's too bad, however, that I did not yet comprehend English on my 4th grade field trip.  The entire experience was lost on me.  I remember big troughs of syrup.  I remember drinking syrup.  I remember later that day, trying to explain to my parents what I saw ("something apple-y" was the best I could come up with), them consulting with each other, and then explaining to me that what I saw had nothing to do with apples-- the word was "maple" syrup.  I had forgotten that story and never told it until today.  Now that I think about it, it's pretty amusing.  Most of fourth grade went by in that same blur.  I was taken to places I did not know and told things I could not repeat.  Even going on each field trip was a genuine surprise because I had no idea what anyone around me was saying, and no one ever broke things down enough for me.  And nothing my parents said ahead of time ever prepared me for the experiences-- Plymouth Plantation, Wolf Hollow, maple tapping-- even if they did tell me ahead of time (I seriously don't think they told me about most field trips), my little life in Taipei held no reference points to those things.