Applause

Well, maybe we’re all hungry…I don’t know. Seems like when I was small, if you were good, well, that was just it…you were good and no one noticed much cause you didn’t “stir up much dust.”

Now my brother…he couldn’t go anywhere without a creatin’ a little cyclone of trouble and mess. He was…well, to me…he was just an "ill wind" if you know what I mean. I knew there was gonna be confusion from the very moment his feet hit the floor in the morning until he would run down the hall at night, leavin’ me to turn out all the lights after stayin’ up late and watchin’ Sci-Fi Theater. But, I’d do it to…and never say a word…cause I learned early that dogs can smell fear, and I figured that went for brothers too.

But be that as it may…back to the point.
One mornin’ I was sittin’ at the breakfast table in peace and quiet because “the wind” hadn’t gotten up yet, when momma tossed in a single tater in the pan to “test tha heat” she liked to say.

It took a minute… but then I heard it…a pan full of taters just clappin! It was like those taters knew, “this child could use a round of applause!” Well, I threw my hands up in the air and stood up right there and took a bow and said, “Thank you…thank you so very much.”

Momma just smiled and held her fry flapper in the air like a wand and said, “Oh, you’re welcome honey, "now run get your brother up, he’s gonna’ be late for breakfast.”
(I love taters...and today is my Momma's birthday..so thank you Momma.)

But there's more...
So I knew Martha Stewart often stole my ideas because I would tell Vera Lee about my gourd idea or set the dining room table with old mason jar candle holders only to see it on page 27 of Martha Stewart Livin' the very next month. But this one was a real mind boggler, being it came from a Spanish lady and wasn’t about a tater at all.

From the short story, Remember the Alamo, by Sandra Cisneros, 1992.

“……When I was a kid and my ma added the rice to the hot oil, you know how it sizzles and spits, it sounds kind of like applause, right? Well, I’d always bow and say Gracias, mi querido pulico, thank you and blow kisses to an imaginary crowd. I still do, kind of as a joke. When I make Spanish rice or something and add it to oil. It roars, and I bow, just a little so no one would guess, but I bow, and I’m still blowing kisses, only inside.


I wish I had thought of the part about still blowin kisses…inside…that’s magic!