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 Words by: Adele Connolly

Image by: Donald Pyper

One of the greatest fixtures of mine and my sister’s childhood was a lanky browned-haired girl whose mission in life seemed to be to never outgrow childhood and to make surreptitious fart jokes as long as she lived. Let’s call her Toots.  Calling her Jane would make more sense in almost every way possible, but this blog was not created to perpetuate sense, viewers.

So. Toots had large doe eyes that would belie her delight with finding the ways of the adult world and pointing them out in ways that would irritate parents to no end. For example, my mother, who has a characteristic flair for decorating and regularly uses words like ’shabby chic’ and ‘French country,’ had adorned several walls of our suburban home with decorative plates. Toots, who could often be found in our living room after school, decided one day to tape three slices of freshly-bought bread to each of the plates above our patio door. Now, Toots was not a child who encouraged confrontation, and would never point out this little alteration to my mother. She did this not so much as an act of defiance as a test to see how long the three of us could hold in our laughter once my mother came home.

Toots may have appeared quite innocent, but parents instinctualy knew by looking in her eyes she was up to trouble, and the worst kind. Because her trouble was in the background, unidentifiable; she would not swear in class but would whisper the meanings of dirty words once Mom had left the room.

As Toots grew into her early teens she remained shy and became the embodiment of teenage awkwardness. She harboured a devastating crush on a local neighbourhood lad but could do nothing about it yet sweat profusely in his presence. She would try to make her appearance as pleasing as possible in the off chance they would cross each other’s paths; trying to wear his favourite colours and painstakingly sleeping on her damp, wavy hair each night in order to make it pin straight. Yet all the while she was obsessing over this boy she was making regular appointments with us to put our mother’s treadmill at full speed and shoot off it into a pile of pillows. For even as Toots grew to womanhood, she held that mischeivious child within her.

Recently, my sister and I saw Toots at our local drunk-soccer-mom-and-fireman hangout in our hometown  during karaoke night. Emilie had just finished a suitably angsty rendition of 90s teen classic “Teen Spirit” by the famed band Nirvana. While we both were basking in the glow of her amazing karaoke skills, there was Toots. It was strange to see our old friend grown up, able to string together a sentence without mentioning weenies. She was still the same old Toots though, and the playground humour and funny voices where still there, just at more appropriate times. At one point she mentioned how she had never gotten along with a mutual acquaintance from high school.

“He doesn’t get me. I’m weird, you know? You guys know.”

Yes Toots, we certainly do.

To read more from Adele, visit her blog, Where’s the Punchline? at http://whereisthepunchline.wordpress.com/

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