Sunday, March 28, 2010

Sharp Sister

I spotted my old electric pencil sharpener at my Mom's yesterday and just started cracking up. My household moved on from that ancient thing years ago, what with all of the mechanical pencils and free drug rep pens over the years and it landed in my mom's office since, you know, according to her, you just never know when you might need one of them. But that one's been around. When Shana was around 10, we went to see Aunt Amy in Asia. Flew through LA and Tokyo to Singapore, went to Cambodia and Bangkok and it wasn't until we were heading to Bali, Indonesia for a little rest (traveling with Amy is not easy) that we got stopped by security. "Open your backpack, Miss," the guy said to little Shana. My heart stopped. She opened it and out came the big electric pencil sharpener, long black cord and all.  I looked at her, "Has that been in your backpack this whole time?" she nodded. "Since we left Phoenix?" Uh huh. "This big, heavy thing has been in there for over a week, probably ten planes, at least four beds? It must weigh five pounds." She said, "Well, I thought I may need to sharpen my pencils," with a 'what part of this don't you understand?' look on her face. The guy gave it back to her for the rest of her journey and I suggested that she put it in her suitcase for the trip home. Today Amy called and told me that her friend, Cecila, emailed her yesterday to tell her that she and her Diplomat husband were getting transferred from Zimbabwe to Jakarta, Indonesia (Amy has really cool friends) and it reminded her of the electric pencil sharpener. She had a good laugh. Did I remember? Remember how we went through Singapore and Cambodia and Thailand and then they caught Shana in Indonesia? I remember. The laughing continued...

Shana in Bali, sans electric pencil sharpener

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