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| "AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HUMOR"TM
SHOWCASE
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December 2005 / January 2006 Contest Results |
My Daughter,
Myself
By Ami Peltier
Cadillac, MI
As a woman with an
identical twin sister, I am well-accustomed to the fact that my sister
Anne and I are physically indistinguishable. Fortunately, our
personalities have always been very distinct, so I’ve never really had
that creepy “I have a clone” feeling.
Now, however, I have a 3-year-old
daughter, Abbie, who is a replica of me as a toddler. The similarities
are unnerving.
It isn’t just the striking physical similarities -- the blue eyes, the
honey-blond hair (all right, fine -- mine has been courtesy of L’Oreal
Preference #H8 for the past 15 years), and, of course, the Unfortunate
Harris Nose.
No, Abbie is more than a clone. She is the fulfillment of a
dire curse issued 28 years ago by my own mother as I lay screaming in
the middle of the grocery store floor, surrounded by a broken bag of
flour and in absolute hysterics that nobody understood my need to play
in the fluffy white powder:
“Some day, I hope you have a daughter who is just like you!”
The occasion of Abbie’s birth did not result in any lightning bolts or
other symbols of a grand prophecy coming into fruition (although that
would explain the shooting, excruciating pain). Yet as I watch Abbie’s
face crumple in preparation for a temper tantrum at the slightest
provocation, I must admit that I deserve this.
Now, allow me to clarify. It’s not that I was a horrible, rude,
mean-spirited child. I was simply a little eccentric, and perhaps a bit
too precocious for my own good, but I never intended any harm. I like to
think of myself as a mild sociopath, but with a heart of gold.
For example, my oldest brother, Jim, often tells a story of standing in
the kitchen and watching my mother yell at me for taking a steak knife
and hacking several divots out of the edge of the kitchen counter.
As Jim remembers it, he and my other brother Rick watched, morbidly
fascinated, as my normally mild-mannered mother worked herself into a
frenzy, turning red in the face and practically spitting as she
screamed. After a long-winded diatribe, she delivered the classic coup
de grace: “...and don’t you EVER do something like that again! DO YOU
UNDERSTAND ME???”
Completely unremorseful, I placed my hands on my hips, stuck out my
bottom lip, and said, “No!”
At this point, my brothers dissolved into fits of laughter, while my
mother desperately pleaded with them to stop encouraging me.
My childhood behavior has had long-lasting consequences. Some families
like to read The Night Before Christmas every holiday season. My
family prefers to engage in a lively round of “Man, Ami sure was a weird
kid” stories. Yes, it just wouldn’t be Christmas without the classics,
such as “Ami Lights the Bathroom on Fire,” “Ami Pees Under Heidi's Bed
For No Apparent Reason” and “Ami Takes a Razor Blade To Dad’s Brand New
Padded Desk Chair.”
I never felt like anybody really understood me. After all, my mother had
five kids, ages six and under, so my seemingly strange actions might
have been bids for attention. And perhaps my delight with fire stemmed
from a lively scientific curiosity about the addition of heat to organic
compounds. Maybe I was worried that raccoons might nest under my
sister’s bed, and had heard that toddler urine was an environmentally
friendly deterrent.
Now that I have my own little Ami, I must endure the knowing grins of my
family every time Abbie misbehaves. She has yet to take a knife to any
of my furniture (which is a shame, since distressing is such a hot new
design trend), but she certainly got my propensity for throwing fits and
my need for attention.
Abbie is a lucky little girl, because I understand her conflicting
emotions and her need for approbation. When she had a fit in the
Wal-Mart check-out line because I expressed mild displeasure after she
sprayed a king-sized bag of M&M’s all over the floor of lanes 12-18, I
felt no anger or frustration with her inability to understand that this
was unacceptable behavior. My poor, misunderstood baby girl.
I hope she has a daughter just like her some day.
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