Today, in the middle of completely mundane task of preparing lunch, I suddenly recalled one of the oldest memories I have of my childhood.
I was born in a small mountain town and my grandma would be often taking me for walks in surrounding woods. By the end of the summer the woods would be full (for a given value of full) of raspberries and blackberries, and, like every kid, I loved picking and eating them, ripe and sweet.
Well, at one point, I must have been 2 -3 years old, probably one of the first times I indulged in harvesting the fruits of the wild, my grandmother saw me and warned me not to eat the berries without washing them first. Fair enough, although back then I asked her the most devastating of questions all parents and grandparents dread, the inquisitive "why".
The answer still haunts me, occasionally, since it was fairly inventive and burned an eternal image in my young and easily shaped mind.
My grandma told me not to eat the fruit without washing it, since mice climb up the bushes and then pee on the berries.
I swear, till today I can still picture a mouse needing very badly to "answer the call of nature", frantically searching for the nearest raspberry bush, climbing it, quickly picking up the ripest berry, carefully positioning itself balancing on its two hind legs (I was a small boy and that's how I peed) and then peeing all over it.
Kudos for inventive parenting :)
Of course, since I've spent a lot of my childhood years running wild in the woods, I've eaten my share of all kinds of berries, in my mind most of them quite probably used as rodent lavatory on regular basis, and this only taught me not to be too picky regarding the quality and origin of any kind of food obtained by means other than being bought in a supermarket.
Oh, the bliss of being a kid.
I guess sometimes, when you really want your berries, extra serving of mice piss is a small price to pay, so to speak ;)
I plan to grow raspberries. they are expensive.
ReplyDeleteHahaha. I like the visual of the mouse hunting for a berry bush! That is awesome!
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh that's great. I wasn't born in a small mountain town but our summer/weekend home is in the PA Pocono mountains and we always picked and ate the berries warm from the sun and bursting with sweetness right from the vines and never once did I hear about rodent piss. *cringe*
ReplyDeleteAs a kid eating berries until you had black/red fingers and mouths from the juice, finding a honeysuckle bush...well that was the best part of being a kid!