When I was a girl ---not that I'm a boy now, getting new toys was a very rare occasion. My sister and I spent so much time taking care of our younger siblings that toys seemed like such a waste of time. She and I spent the years of our childhood being little grownups, doing grown up things with grown up responsibilities.
However, our little hometown had a little store called Lankford's Variety Store. We didn't enter the store very often because the ladies that worked there followed you around as if you were going to steal something all the time. But--every once in a while my mom had business in there and we would walk to town with her so we could at least look at the toys.
One day, for no reason at all, my mother bought us a Lemon Twist Toy. Have you ever seen one? It was a plastic, hard lemon at the end of a plastic tube that had a ring that you could slide over your foot onto your ankle. The object of the game was to twist the lemon and jump over the lemon in rapid progression. I can't really tell you the purpose of the toy as you don't really win and it doesn't take any true intellectual capacity---it mainly depends on coordination and skill.
My sister and I had to share the toy but we didn't mind because we shared everything and we had accepted that that's what sister's do--they share.
We loved that silly little toy. We would play for hours and hours. That summer went by with us playing outside trying to see which one of us could jump the lemon the most times. Of course, she always won--she has always been a better athlete. I would always claim that I needed to start over because I had messed up, or she was talking to me, or the wind was blowing, or some other made up distraction that could possibly give me another chance.
I can see her now with short little black hair and nimble little legs, jump, jump, jump, 50, 60, 70; ---she wouldn't even break a sweat. Her little legs would have ashy spots because she needed lotion but she didn't care. She would smile her cute little smile with perfect teeth or sometimes she'd even stick her tongue at me when I tried to mess her count up. Oh, we had so much fun!
My legs of course, had many bruises where I would whack myself with that stupid, ridiculous lemon. Who the heck thought of such a silly game? People can get hurt! I would be jumping with my mouth open because my buck toothed self couldn't fully close my mouth. My glasses would be slipping down, and my crazy thick, barbed wire braids would be slapping me with each jump.
Of course, I got use to losing because I lose all competitive sports, but I was always up for playing with her again the next day.
I miss the Lemon Twist Toy not because I want to whack myself with a plastic lemon, or get beat by my little sister again but because I miss my sister. I miss the days of just hanging out and laughing. I miss being able to be free to lose in front of the person who always treats me like a winner. I love her so much because she is such a good person.
I miss the moments of our innocence that we took for granted----I wish I still had a Lemon Twist toy:)
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