Green Goo

Danny started preschool last week.  I thought I’d be all sentimental and crying, thinking about it as such a pivotal moment in his life, sad that he’s growing up…but I’m not.  I don’t know if it’s an “I’m ready for him to go to school” thing or if it’s a “Roberts don’t get emotional about stuff like that” thing and I’m pulling a classic Roberts move of being totally fine with him going to preschool right now and going crazy on Jeff about not putting his shoes away tomorrow when I’m really sad about Danny growing up. 

Regardless, as I do things for his preschool, like buying Dixie cups for the school,  I’m finding myself remembering my own preschool experiences.  The memory that stands out to me?  Disgusting lime jello goo with chunks of something in it.

Don’t tell me that you never had that fabulous surprise in your preschool classroom.  I know you did. 

The teacher said, “It’s time to wash our hands.” 

And I thought to myself, yes!  Snacktime!  I wonder what it is today.  Cookies?  Pretzels?  Goldfish Crackers?

And out come the little Dixie cups filled with green chunky goo.  Bright green jell-o deliciousness demolished by chunks of some nasty unidentifiable sitting on a shelf for a million years fruitishness.  What IS that?  Who ruins perfectly good ground horse-hoof-laden jello with chunks of pretend fruit?

I remember trying so hard to be polite about it like my mama taught me to be, but I know I squirmed and wrinkled my nose at it, pushed it away from me as though being near it would contaminate me.

This was my first experience with ‘jello salad,’ and I must admit I have never acquired a taste for that nastiness.  I’m sure I will never enjoy the chunky goo, and you can bet that I will never ever send that as a snack for Danny and his precious little classmates.  I don’t want to traumatize them like I was.

The funniest thing is that as I was pulling the Dixie cups off of the shelf at Walmart, remembering the nasty green goo traumatizing moment in my own preschoolerhood, I thought to myself, I should blog about the green goo.  But what is the green goo a metaphor for?

And it occurred to me that I can over metaphor things and that there might not be a good metaphor for green goo jello traumatizing small children during their preschool snack.  Sometimes it just is what it is.  Sometimes the moment of the day we usually look forward to is a Dixie cup full of unidentifiable chunky green inedible goo.