Monday Memories: "there she was just walkin' down the street"

Shocker: I hate doing dishes. I always have. This menial task was always a source of contention in the Bee household with Momma explaining that we didn't need a dishwasher because she had three of them: one to wash, one to dry, and one to clean off the table and put the dishes away.

As soon as a meal was finished, the competition would begin. No one liked to dry. Clearing the table and putting dishes away was the easiest of the tasks, so it was the most highly coveted. Kiki, the world's slowest eater, often seemed like she was merely taking her sweet time to get put on the latter task by default. Those who had to skip out of the house early for soccer practice would rejoice in the fact that they had been saved.

There was one thing that could save us from killing each other during dish time -- Mom's old Solid Gold cassettes. It wasn't possible to be bitter when you were busy shaking your hips and singing "Lollypop" or "Do Wah Diddy Diddy". Singing along to those tapes made us seem like friendly siblings between the brush-throwing and hair-pulling. It provided a glimpse of what life would be like when we all surpassed the "bitchy teenage girl" stage and moved away from home. It's not saying that we're perfect all of the time now, but the way that we get along is much more as it was when we were dancing together to those old hits than it was when we were hurling random objects and mean comments at each other.

So, little one, if you want to maybe do your big sister a favour and make her a copy of those old tunes that you've scrounged up... she'd make sure you were rewarded appropriately. Hint, hint.