My Nickname

In the summer between 5th and 6th grade we moved across town to a different house with a plum tree in the back yard. I was a rough and tumble tomboy and I didn’t have any friends, so I spent the summer weeding the yard and picking the rotten plums off the ground and putting them in a big, black garbage bag (I can still smell that sickly sweet...and I am just now starting to enjoy plums again). One time my Mom was talking to the little old lady that lived across the alley from us. I don’t know what the context of their conversation was but the little old lady said to my Mom, ”I just thinks it’s so sweet of you to put that little retarded boy to work for you.”

And my Mom said,”You mean my daughter?”

So my family likes to call me “the little retarded boy”...and I don’t mind because I like the story.