Easter Basket

One Easter, I noticed that my part of the handle on my plastic Easter basket was melted. It was one of those handles that is made of two strands of plastic twisted together, and there was a part of the handle on mine that looked like it had melted flat. The two strands were fused together and kind of flattened, and then it had cooled. And that was that.

I remember noticing it. I don’t know why I just kind of shrugged it off. Nowadays in our house, we would say “little deal.” Because it really wasn’t that big of a deal. I think I was a little disappointed, I mean, I really have this idealist perfectionist personality trait. But yeah, I just shrugged it off, and forgot about it.

Later my mom was talking to me, and she pointed out that when they bought the baskets, they put them in the back of the car while they finished the rest of the shopping. Apparently part of the handle on one of the baskets was resting on something metal in the trunk, and it got hot and melted the handle. When she saw it she felt so bad, and didn’t know what to do. She decided to give that basket to me, because she thought I would handle it in a mature way and not freak out about it. (I don’t think back then people used the term “freak out” on a regular basis, so I’m not sure what her exact words were, but that’s the gist).

I remember being so relieved that I had not made a big deal out of it! And I felt proud of myself for handling it well. Believe it or not, every once in a while I remember that basket, and it reminds me to not get all bent out of shape when things really are a “little deal.” I’m glad my mom took the time to share how the whole melted handle thing came about, and to let me know she was proud of me.

4-H

Yep, I was a 4-H kid. Nope, it had nothing to do with animals. (Are you kidding? I don't do animals, as you probably already know. I hope I never touch a horse. Or a cow. Or a chicken. I have before, but I'm seriously OCD about ever touching any living animal that is not human. If you see me and want to throw a rotten tomato at me for that, I will totally understand. I don't know why I'm so averse to animals).

Anyway, the point is, I was in 4-H as a kid. Not only was I in 4-H, my parents were the leaders of our group. We had such fun! Me and my brother and sister and my friends. My parents were the coolest, ours was the house where all the neighbor kids came to play because my parents welcomed them and loved kids and didn't worry about how messy it would make the house or how loud and annoying we were. And I'm sure we were. But anyway, I mentioned before about how we went camping a lot, and a lot of those camping trips were 4-H camping trips.

The biggest thing I remember from 4-H is that we did cake decorating. Most of us never got to tips, we just frosted and used candy to decorate. But oh how awesome it was. One year (was it only one? can't remember) we entered our cakes into the county fair. My brother Sam's cake that was decorated like a slice of pizza made it to state, and the rest of us got blue ribbons--at least most of us did, but it's fuzzy so I can't remember if everyone did. Still, it was totally fun.

Years later, when I heard people talking about 4-H as mostly about agriculture and animals, I didn't believe them. Didn't they know that 4-H was for decorating cakes and going camping? Silly people.