Rhubarb was prevalent in every yard in my childhood. On the go, we kids pulled rhubarb stalks from any yard we traipsed through. We gnawed on the rhubarb, laughing at our sour faces. Sometimes, we sat on steps twirling rhubarb stalks in sugar, bite after bite.
My great-niece, Lexy, and great-nephews, Rylee and Jace, like to dip my rhubarb stalks in sugar. I doubt their mother lets them do this at their house. Consequently, their mom has never taken off the lid of her sugar canister to find a leftover rhubarb stalk wilting.
I find these surprises to be hilarious. I stumble across them usually after the kids have gone home. Once I found a huge wad of chewed gum attached to the edge of a refrigerator shelf. On the phone, Lexy assured me that the refrigerator is the best place to keep chewed gum because you will not forget where you put it.
When Rylee was younger, he often put specimens in my refrigerator after rearranging food so he could section off his domain. The liquid concoctions and bugs were labeled and in containers. Only once did I find a huge bug glued to cardboard sitting on a refrigerator shelf! On occasion, Rylee would tape a “Do Not Disturb” sign in the refrigerator by his specimens.
When eating pork chops at my house, Rylee asked if he could keep the pork chop bones in his laboratory (my refrigerator). In unison, I said “yes” and his mother said “no.” Rylee’s response was “Mom, I am an archeologist without any bones!”
Rylee and I prevailed and he kept the bones in his laboratory. We prevailed because I reminded their mother, Malinda, about her propensity as a kid to keep an egg in her bedroom. She would sneak an egg into her room and make a nest in her closet. Malinda would hover her behind over the egg, trying to hatch it. Inevitably, she would forget about the egg until the smell got her in trouble.
Malinda once put a hex on a rhubarb plant I, unknowingly, put in her cemetery for gerbils and guinea pigs near the shed. I bought the rhubarb plant at Stockman’s so it was of good quality. However, Malinda cried when she saw where I planted it. She pronounced her curse on the rhubarb announcing it would never grow. Indeed, the rhubarb plant did not grow. I waited a while before I planted another rhubarb plant in the garden.
