David’s sisters looked at me like I was high and laughed as such a weird thing to say.
They explained they were just your average typical brownies with vanilla frosting.
This could not be true they tasted so good and I said again, something makes this frosting taste like grapes as I grabbed another one. David looked at me with some worry.
Why would David be worried?
It was just an hour or so ago the bus dropped Mike, David and I off at his house. We were in the sixth grade, and on this very nice fall afternoon and I am staying overnight at David’s place for one night sleepover. Since it is such a nice day we took a small hike in the woods. This was one of those picture perfect fall days. The fall colors were in full swing. The sun shining, temperature in the low sixties, blue sky, orange and yellow leaves everywhere and the smell of hickory and pine. Growing up in the Baraboo Bluffs, I took this all for granted. I did not know this was something not everyone got to experience. That might not be true, because we all liked the idea of going walking in the woods. Now by chance Mike brought along some pot and wanted us to try some on this hike. Trying pot at this time seemed much safer and harmless compared to trying to sneak a drink. I did not protest this idea.
When Mike first lights some up, I say how much this smells like burning leaves. Not a bad burning leave smell, but a good smell of fall leaf burning and blended well with the already fall smells around us. We keep walking and Mike takes the first smoke, followed by me then David. David gives us a stern warning..
“ Don’t get weird or get any smoke on you. If my dad finds out he will kill us. He was in the Navy and knows how to hurt you”
We said we would be quick and then take a long hike and any smoke smell would be long gone. Neither Mike nor I took David’s warning too seriously.
David said he felt funny and Mike said he could feel it kicking in also. I either did not know what to expect or it did not have any effect on me. I said I felt nothing and suspected that both were lying about feeling anything. Mike explained the first time you will feel nothing. It takes a few times. This might have worked for an excuse, however this was not my first... or second time, however I keep feeling nothing. I was beginning to think all of this is a big hoax.
On our extended hike, David begins a conversation about the future.
“ you know this is the last year we are going to be friends?”
“What? “ I reply, “Why do you say this? “
David then explained that once we get to middle school everything changes and we will have different friends. His older sisters all said this happened and we can’t do anything about it , it will just happen that way.
Mike had an older sister and said that can happen, however seemed much less definitive about this prediction.
In my mind how could I comprehend this. My grade school class was the same group of 20 or so kids since first grade. The option of getting rid of friends intentionally was not ever an experience or even possible. Sure some kids moved away, but that is not something you can control. It was too foreign of a concept to think you had the ability to change friends.
I definitely said “Well, I don’t believe this, we will always be friends.”
David explained again that is just the way things are, you can’t do anything about it, you should just accept this.
That was the end of the conversation, and we headed to the house. convinced we were odor free. This is where I was then confronted by the grape frosting brownies that I for some reason, could not get enough of. Really, I never had a brownie taste like this ever.
David was about to panic at this when the topic of the new Steve Martin LP was discussed. They had the record. I loved the song King Tut, had no idea there might be more. I wanted to hear and started to laugh at the skit about getting small and what happened when Steve Martin got vacuumed up when small. Hilarious.
Since then, I never came across frosting that tasted like that again.
and
David ended up being correct.
