'Thelma Keeps Botherin' Me'
© 2001 Rebecca P. Pearce
Clem and his wife Thelma never were much for trying to keep up with their ancestors, but they often did expend a good bit of effort to stay in touch with some of their descendants.
One of the brightest of these ~ and one of their favorites ~ was Maggie, among the latest additions to the family tree.
Clem and Thelma were among Maggie's favorites, also, and she showed this by urging her parents to let her spend a lot of quality time with grandma and grandpa.
Clem and Thelma usually ate at K&S Cafeteria, where the food was good ~ and cheap. Just the place for a couple of old folks feeding on Social Security.
Once, when she was about three, Maggie went along with them to K&S.
She wasn't much interested in the nutritional value of the various dishes placed before her, but was almost immediately captivated by her little bowl of blue Jello and her glass of ice water.
Her interest was heightened when she discovered that if she transferred a small bit of Jello into her glass of water, spidery webs of blue would begin to spread through the liquid. When she learned that she could increase and change the pattern with her spoon, she became completely absorbed in that task.
Thelma watched quietly a few minutes, and then said: "Maggie, quit playing with your Jello, and eat some food."
When this remonstrance went totally unnoticed, Thelma decided to repeat herself.
"Maggie, stop putting that Jello in that ice water."
A frown started to fix itself on Maggie's face. But then, turning to Clem and placing one hand on his arm and staring at him with all the charm of her big three-year-old brown eyes, she pointed with the other hand to several empty tables in a far corner of the dining room, back in the smoking section.
"Clem," she said, "can you and I go sit at one of those tables over there?
"So Thelma won't have to keep botherin' me?"
~~~
Maggie c. 2000
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