Objects of Desire

Today in the staff room a bunch of us ladies were sitting around the table having a good chat about everything under the sun, when one woman began talking about pop, of all things (Hey, it was Friday and we were all fried out from having our teacher hat on all week....). Then we all started giving our point of view about pop from our dislikes, to the amount of sugar in one can, and so forth. Then one woman said, "Except for cream soda...I love cream soda," and suddenly I was not in the staff room anymore, but instantaneously transported back in time.

Here I am with the thought of cream soda in my mind and I am a nine year old girl, barfing cream soda all over the back alleys of Winnipeg outside of an upholstery shop while my sister screams, "STOP WALKING WHILE YOUR PUKING!" as I ping ponged from garbage can to garbage can, spreading my wealth. I was a perpetual embarrassment to my older sister. But why on earth did I end up in such a predicament in the first place, you wonder? (Well, just pretend that you are in a state of wonderment, if you're not. Humour me...)

Let me explain. The whole family had travelled down to Winnipeg to get our couch re-upholstered. It had lived past its days as a turquoise flower-impressioned sofa beast and was being updated to the 80's with something that didn't necessarily scream at you, "I AM A COUCH!" every time you walked into the livingroom. (Personally, I miss that coloured couch and almost started crying last year when I found a purse made out of almost the exact same coloured and printed material.) It was summer time when we were on this trip, and it was hot, hot, hot. And we were in a small, non-air conditioned upholstery shop; probably one of the most boring places in the world for a nine year old to be. My dad made a suggestion that we go and get some drinks at the 7/11, so I jumped at the opportunity to get the hell outta there and help him carry drinks back. For a small town girl from Ignace, going to a 7/11 was a really big deal. We just didn't have convenience stores like this where I came from. I wasn't used to variety. In small towns, your choices are made for you, and that's what they consider "convenient". So there it was...the big pop dispensing machine with a variety of cups sitting on top of it; small, medium, large and what's this?!?! A Big Gulp? I had never seen anything so massive in my life! I had never seen something so amazing in my life! A waxed cardboard cup that was so gargantuan in size that it couldn't possibly be used for human consumption. Now, this is where the freaky little arty kid that I was comes in, because I wasn't thinking in my mind, "I'm thirsty, and that will satisfy my thirst", or "I love cream soda so that will satiate my craving for cream soda". No, I was thinking, "That cup is perfect for holding my paint brushes!" I'm not kidding. That is exactly what I was thinking. So it was a double whammy of goodness when I filled it up with delicious cream soda. Talk about your two for one deal when you're a nine year old small town girl!

No, I did not drink the pop slowly. No, I did not consider that it was two quarts of red sugar. No, I did not consider that it was hot outside and that I was most likely dehydrated. No, I did not consider that my boredom would lead to quick consumption of the whole Big Gulp in record time. I didn't consider any of that until it was too late. My sister should have warned me since she seemed quite aware of what the results were going to be. I can still hear her voice saying, "I knew you were going to puke! I knew you were drinking it too fast!" And I can still remember promising myself that I would never, ever touch a cream soda pop ever again in my entire life.

That whole story was ejected from my cluttered brain in that quick instant in the staff room. Object association is a phenomenal thing. That Big Gulp cup is more than a Big Gulp cup. It is a symbol of a tenacious little girl who had a big idea and the determination to follow through, even if it made her puke.

It's amazing how an inanimate object, with no thoughts of its own, can have such substantial impact on a person's life. There are even television shows to prove it, from "Clean Sweep" to "Hoarders". People get so dangerously connected to objects because of the memories connected to them that sometimes they have difficulty letting those things go. I have often wondered why the councillors and therapists involved in these shows don't suggest that these people take photographs of what it is they're having difficulty throwing away, so that they still have the object, per se, but it's a bit more containable (in an album or scrapbook or computer file). It just seems so simple to me, but perhaps it's the tactile quality of the object as well? I am not sure. But it would just seem like such a burden to have to have yourself surrounded by objects in order to have reflective moments with good memories. I was lucky to have that experience just through conversation, I guess.

But just in case you're curious, I still have that cup, and it definitely has paint brushes in it.