disorderly potatoes.

In doing initial research for this series, I FaceTimed with my sister. We talked for quite a while about the intricacies and oddities of our childhood and how we saw the world. I don’t remember everything. I have what my mom calls, “Selective Memory Loss.” And there are definitely moments that I blocked out or selectively forgot for some reason or other. This is apparently one of them. We were a family of order and routine. We ate when dad came home. We sat in the same chairs at the table (Clockwise: Mom sat closest to the kitchen. Janine sat with her back to the windows. Dad faced mom, and I faced my sister). We did things in patterns. One day (for reasons unknown to me), mom and dad made Janine and I swap seats.  Messing with order meant that something probably went down that didn’t have a category in the “what-ifs” my parents had experienced in raising us to that point. The thing that Janine remembers most: she cried because my seat smelled like mashed potatoes. I’m glad we survived that one.