Orange Julius, etc.

I took 3 little sticky fingered-question-asking-totting toddlers to the mall today. I thought I’d distract them from weaving their way through the crowds by buying them each an Orange Julius. Admittedly, I was completely bribing them to just sit down so I could hear myself think and maybe keep them in one geographic location for more than 60 seconds. It worked beautifully.

I crinkled the receipt into the bottom of my purse as we sought out a table in the intimidating food court and they plopped down on the wooden chairs.

We talked about why the cup is made out of paper, who colors it and how “the man” makes it to which I quickly interjected that I was certain both women and men make them at “the factory”. Then conversation turned towards an interrogation about where we’re going next and the endless stream of questions around how long it would take until we got there. This conversation was of course in itself pointless, because I was dealing with an abstract dimension of time. Specifically the time frame in which 24 seconds is 14 million times longer than an hour. . .Not to mention the massive confusion around the length of a days, weeks and forever’s.

Four year olds.

Finally the panel interview came to a pause and all that was heard was the shuffling of nearby shopping bags and the impolite slurp of the children’s straws as their bellies filled up with orange juice and ice cream at ten in the morning. I began to disclose my memories of going to an Orange Julius with my Dad as a little girl. I told them that he’d never ask me what I wanted because he always knew. Either that or we couldn’t afford the fancy strawberry-banana contraption that came in the large cup. Either way, I was indifferent to what drink we were having because all that mattered to me was sitting with my Dad and feeling special. I told them that when I was a little girl I lived in California and we’d go to a place called Del Amo Mall. I’d do exactly what us four were doing right then- sit at the food court and stop for a drink.

The nostalgic trip down memory lane soon came to a detour as the little boy looked at me with bewilderment and asked, “how come you didn’t come to this mall?” “Well,” I said “I guess we didn’t know about this mall back then”. He just looked at me as if he was trying to make sense of why in the world this lady was telling him this story. The other two little people sat there slurping away and I’m not entirely sure they were even in on the conversation. This came to my attention immediately after the youngest kept pointing to her head and reciting the word “nose” in her loudest vibrato. I went on to say that it was nice to have special memories with family and I thanked them for stopping for a special treat with me, the same way I did when I was their age.

The little boy, my nephew, said that I was welcome and after he finished wiping his frothy mouth with his red sweatshirt sleeve he asked “So then. . . after you had a drink with your Daddy, then you grew up?” Not quite knowing how to reply to that I just smiled and nodded. I took a big slurp from my own cup and then looked at him and enthusiastically answered “Well, I guess I pretty much did. BUT the nice thing is, I can sit here and drink this Orange Julius with you all and I’m right back where I used to be. . . all those years ago!”

He just looked at me, and then slowly said “I have to go to the bathroom now”.

So, that was what we did next. It took approximately 4 -6 minutes.