If you’re in need of some levity during these crazy times in this world, let me share with you one of my favorite incidents from when I was a pumpkinseed, revolving around the spooky subject of mummies.
One summer afternoon when I was very, very young, my older cousin was visiting and she was watching the classic 80s/90s kids’ TV show, Reading Rainbow. That particular episode centered around a book called Mummies Made In Egypt, and went into some detail about how mummies were made and things like that, as much as could be done on something made for children.
The episode is actually on YouTube if you care to watch it.
Whatever age I was at the time, somewhere between two and four, I obviously knew nothing about ancient Egypt. I had no idea what a “mummy” was. Yet somehow I knew the story being told was nonfiction. These were actual events that happened, and my tiny pumpkinseed brain was terrified! I felt claustrophobic just thinking about it. And I didn’t understand that these people were already dead while they were going through the mummification process!
But the real problem was, I didn’t think they were saying “mummy”. Every time they referred to “making a mummy”, I was hearing it as “mommy”!
And, being so young and having a limited vocabulary at the time, I believed that a “mommy” was the proper term for all adult women.
I legitimately thought that you had to go through an entire mummification process in a country far away, simply in order to grow up!
I had secret little anxiety attacks over the thought for days until I finally built up the courage to ask my parents the very strangely worded question, “Do you have to be made to grow up?” . I remember that moment clearly, struggling to put a pair of too-tight shorts on my very first Barbie, and I guess the frustration just finally became too much to bear! I can’t for the life of me recall how my parents reacted or explained the difference between mummies and mommies, but by the end of the night, my mind was at ease, and I knew I wasn’t going to be shipped off to Egypt on my eighteenth birthday to be dried out and wrapped up and shoved into a sarcophagus for an indefinite period of time.
I believed a lot of crazy things as a pumpkinseed with a wild imagination, but this story is probably my favorite. I hope it made you laugh as much as it still makes me laugh every time I think about it!
Stay spooky, my friends.
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