4:36 PM >> A recollection of Viennetta

In my family this tale is legend. It ranks up there with the time Aunt Jo put jalepenos in the baked beans for the family reunion. Or the time when everyone thought Grandpa had died while sitting on the recliner, but he had just fallen asleep. Or the time a mini-van full of cousins snuck out in the middle of the night fueled with the inspiration of drunken judgment to toilet paper their 82 year old grandfather. And they did. So the tale is told.

And oh, sweet recollections of Viennetta. The hidden Viennetta in the shopping cart. My little brother, the pirate loving little Dalbaby had just moved to New York for the first time. The entire family - Dad, Dusty (the middle brother who hates the smell of sulfur, among many other things), me, and my Mom - went with to see the little boy away from home's nest into adulthood or college fantasy land or My First Sony Life, whatever you call this section in life. He was going away. Into the big city. I'll never forget walking away from the subway car leaving him there to New York and he sticks his tongue out to my Mom showing off the tongue ring he had concealed for the months leading up to his departure from home. I am sure my Mom saw. She cried. Not just because her youngest little boy was leaving home, but she cried too at this little twisted secret that he just revealed to her.

The Viennetta comes to play earlier in the trip. The family was all at some smelly grocery store on Roosevelt Island where his dorm was. My Dad likes to say Roos-evelt, not the proper Rose-evelt. It drives me crazy every time I hear him pronounce that word or for that matter a long list of words that he mispronounces, like: warsh for wash, sowf-more for sophmore, sal-mon for salmon, eye-talian for italian. He's broken. He skips bad. But, I say eye-talian too. I feel like I'm be betraying some phonetic heritage if I fix the problem. So I guess I didn't fall too far from the unbending tree and his irritating mispronunciations of words.

So we're all at the store cruising the aisles. Dal is picking out whatever he wants and throwing it into the cart. Typical younger brother. Gets to move to New York. Gets whatever groceries he wants. Gets a monthly care package sent to him from Atlanta. But I always manage to sneak some stupid thing into the package like a box of Nutty Bars, which he doesn't like or a lame-o monkey Halloween mask or peanut butter flavored rice cakes. Oh, I get my revenge. You have to. Cause the younger siblings get whatever they want. As I like to say, they always get $20 before they go out and without even having to ask. Parents just instinctively pull a twenty out of their kind and good hearts when they hear their youngest walking out the front door.

"Bye, Mom. Going out."

"OH, wait. Here's twenty dollars? By something to eat or go see a movie or..."

Or get your tongue pierced.

Where's my twenty? I had to bag groceries all weekend for twenty bucks.

So I thought we'd just test the limits of my parents' sibling selective generosity. I snuck off with my brother to the freezer section and I let him pick out his favorite Viennetta flavor. Then when my parents weren't looking we snuck the Viennetta into the cart. They paid. Without even thinking about it. It went over the scanner, into the bag, then up to my brother's new dorm room in this new part of his life that he'd spend in his new city. His New York. And here I am in Sue-aw-knee, Georgia still bitter and eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.