Penny For Your Thoughts By: Nancy Whitaker
I think I am somewhat of a different person because I am very curious about everything. Of course I know some things about different things, but I am likely to make cookies or a cake at 11 pm just because it sounds good. Strange? Not for me.!
After I was married and had my kids, holidays and birthdays were celebrated with gifts and parties. One year around Christmas time, my 2 daughters saw an advertisement in a magazine for sea monkeys. The ad said that these little creatures jumped around in their bowls of water and were sooo much fun to watch. So I ordered Sea Monkeys.
Well the sea monkeys came in the mail along with certain additives to put in their water, which had to be cold. Those sea monkeys floated around and looked like specs of dust. If you looked real close you may see them actually do a little jumping motion.
One day the girls came home from school and unbeknownst to me, the chilled sea money water with the chemicals had disappeared. .
I asked both daughters if they had seen the cold sea monkey water. Well of course oldest daughter said, “I think I might have drank it.”. Oh no!
We waited and thought she might get ill but she was alright. Years later I found out sea monkeys are actually baby shrimp (I just recently found that out).
That gift was fun at first but became boring as the sea monkeys didn’t really do much.
One year I recall it was Christmas time and I had went down town to do some shopping. Back in the day there were numerous stores downtown and streets were alive with shoppers who were trying to find that perfect gift.
Well we went into a store and my eyes beheld a gorgeous coat. It was red and blue and was made of shiny material that I loved.
So I tried it on and pranced around and asked my husband, “Don’t I look good in this coat?” He replied, “Yes but look at that price tag.
I looked at the price of the beautiful coat and it was $40. I knew we couldn’t really afford that coat, but I could dream of it.
Christmas Eve arrived and hubby and I went to a relatives house where we stored all the gifts. It so happened my gift was handed to me to carry and husband said, “Be careful carrying that box because it is fragile and it’s your gift.”
Oh no! If it just happened to be the coat I wanted, the box was tall and thin and had fragile written on it. I carried my gift very carefully so I wouldn’t break it.
Then later it was time to open gifts. Should I open that fragile box? I was thinking that it was probably just an oversized glass vase. Opening the box I had to keep it upright because I knew if I broke it, I would feel bad.
After going through many layers of tissue papers trying not to break anything. I spied something red and blue in the bottom of the box. Oh my, it was the beautiful coat I had asked for. I felt like Joseph in the Bible with his coat of many colors. This was a gift that I wore and used for years. Lots of secretive things happened to make that gift mine.
Another time it was my birthday and I decided I wanted an ant farm. I liked to watch ants outside with their ant hills working and carrying food back to their homes. Just think if I had a special ant farm it would be so much fun…… however, that’s a whole other story for next week.
Let me ask this “Have you ever had sea monkeys? Did you know they were baby shrimp? Has anyone ever surprised you with a gift you really wanted? Let me know and I’ll give you a Penny For Your Thoughts.
