I am participating in the March Slice of Life Challenge: A slice a day for all of March.  You should do it too!  Thank you, Two Writing Teachers! Readers, check out their site, and start slicing! 

My family came over for dinner tonight because my sister was in for a surprise short visit. We all chatted at the table after dinner and some of our favorite stories came up. Do you have stories like that in your family? Stories where some of the details are a little fuzzy, but others are crystal clear? Stories that are like little slices of your family’s history? Stories like the Halloween dinner story: 

When I was in middle school, I invited a new friend over to go trick-or-treating. She arrived with her mom and dad and a brother or two. It seemed normal at first, they were dropping off my friend, so of course they would want to come in and meet my family. As we got ready to go trick-or-treating, we realized that this family was not leaving. I have a vague memory of the whole family going around the neighborhood with us. A few houses in, we all realized that the entire family was planning on staying for dinner as well.  My mom remembers leading us to her friend across the street. She ran a little ahead of us so that when her friend opened the door,  my mom was able to quickly whisper, “These people think they are having dinner with us, but I didn’t plan on a dinner. What should I do? Do you have any tomato sauce?”

I don’t remember many specifics from that night. What was my costume?  The dinner is foggy. We had spaghetti, I guess… I don’t know what costume I had on. I don’t remember how many brothers my friend had. What I do remember is the awkward feeling of the whole evening. We didn’t understand what was going on, we had to figure it out moment by moment.   It was a weird and uncomfortable night… but at least now it’s a funny little story… A tiny slice of my childhood.