Grow Up Comes A Time In Life When Being A Kid Is No Longer Cute

At a family reunion a few years back, I was seated across the dinner table from my adult cousin and his tender young wife. The prayer of thanks for the food that we were about to eat had become a sermon with no end in sight, as public prayer often does.

I and a few bored children, peering through reverent fingers, looked around at our bowed kin. There were no other adult peekers in the crowd. Feeling shame, I was about to bow my head again when I noticed a distinct smile on my aforementioned cousin’s face. Since the prayer-sermon offered little in the way of humor, his grin provoked my curiosity.

Finally, when every variation of sin had been mentioned and condemned, the prayer came to an end.

Then my smiling cousin brought his face up to his wife’s as if to give her a kiss. But before their lips met, he opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue. Sitting on that pink protuberance was a tree frog.

Probably inspired by finally seeing daylight, the amphibian hopped on to my cousin’s wife. She jumped up shrieking and ran from the room. Some china was broken, little children chased after the frog and the senior generation roundly condemned my cousin’s act as unseemly for an adult with children of his own.

If you’ve ever held a tree frog captive in your hands, even for a brief time, then you know the sacrifice that my cousin made that day.

Out of respect for my perturbed grandmother, I withheld even the slightest sign of approval. There were, however, some few young reprobates who applauded his misguided act.

In my heart, I felt for my censured cousin because that same scorn has been heaped on me for some of my own past conduct, conduct that would have been expected from a junior high student rather than an adult raising children of his own.

But I have put those sorts of deeds behind me (for the most part) and hoped the elders’ reactions to the frog incident would motivate my cousin to do the same, so that he might take his place in the grown-up world. Those who make it only half-way to adulthood will end up like Howard Stern, Joey Buttafuoco or Prince Charles.

My cousin did grow all the way up and even became the equivalent of a minister in his church.

Like others who defend their juvenile behavior, I used to smugly claim that it was part of being young at heart. However, after repeated explanations from my wife and other authority figures, I became convinced that these antics were really signs of arrested development, probably due to a fear of becoming an adult.

My life has changed since this enlightenment. Not only have I forsaken childish pranks, but I almost never laugh at things like unzipped zippers, animals mating in public places or inappropriate flatulence. (Is it ever appropriate?)

I try not to tell dirty jokes or swear indoors. I stop reading Dave Barry columns whenever I see the word “booger.” There is no 12-step program for the disease of children-in-adult-bodies. We’re alone with no treatment or meetings, so, as you might suspect, relapses do occur.

But a relapse can sometimes make you stronger. A recent bitter experience will keep me on the adult track for a very long time.

In a weak moment during the Halloween season, I purchased a startling ghoul mask at a certain costume shop that I shall never enter again. The cost was more than $100 but less than $200.

In order to justify my expense, I felt compelled to use the mask in every situation available, even at inappropriate times. See how one mistake leads to another as this insidious disease works upon its victim.

Pulling into a Burger King drive-in entrance, I slipped the mask over my head and spoke my order into the microphone. I drove up to the pick-up window and a teen-age girl at the cash register repeated the price of my meal.

I handed her the money, which she took matter-of-factly as though ghouls pull up to her window every day. It was a very scary mask.

She handed over my food and bid me have a nice day.

Presuming that she hadn’t taken the time to look at me, I stuck my ghoul-like head out of the car window and put it right up in front of her child-like face, then growled fiercely for added affect.

Sarcasm dripped off of her one-word response: “Cute.”

No teen-age girl should ever make that remark in that tone to a 46-year-old man.

My tires chirped as I jumped on the gas pedal in order to get away before she could see my eyes moisten with tears of humiliation.

What kind of parents raised a daughter who could make a savage remark like that to a total stranger?

Time has passed and the pain has softened. I guess she and I both acted badly.

But I am the adult and she is the child, so it’s up to me to set the mature example by apologizing for my conduct.

I publicly vow to return (without the silly mask) to that same Burger King and make a face-to-face apology to the girl at the window.

And it’s going to be a hard thing to do at first, because, well… you know, with my mouth full of tree frogs and all.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Darin Z. Krogh Special to IN Life