Ellemental

I started talking at an early age. (I’m sure the VIM would add, “…and she hasn’t shut up since…”, but whatever.)

When I was learning the tips and tricks of effective communication, I often misunderstood words I heard and ended up making my own. Therefore skeleton was skelington, animals were amimals, and those big heavy things that hang over the windows? Those were grapes. Not drapes. Why? Because in my vast 3 years of experience on earth I had never heard the word drapes before. Therefore It Did Not Exist. The word grapes did. End of discussion. Please open the grapes and let the sunshine in.

My grandmother still teases me about her favorite language misunderstanding: Women who were expecting were not pregnant. They were fragrant. Through the years, as my grandmother shares the Extended Family News with me, she’ll often report something like, “Janie is fragrant again, she’s due in May.”

The other night my grandmother was checking up in on me to see if I had kicked the flu. I told her that I was feeling a little better, but it was lingering. She lowered her voice and asked in her coy little grandmother way if perhaps I might be fragrant.

I told her that while there was indeed an element of fragrance involved in my condition, the little bundles I was delivering were NOT bundles of joy.