This a monologue-type response to an article my mom wrote that I performed for my speech class today. It’s called Nobody Wants Koolaid (alternatively, “Things I Learned When I Moved Out”) and I wrote it about twenty minutes before it was due. Go me. Yay college.
My mom wrote an article for a magazine the other night.
The first line: Someone is always gonna want Koolaid.”
It was essentially an article about how my parents are empty-nesters
And no longer have four toddlers pleading for sippy cups to be filled with Koolaid.
The take-away is that nobody wants Koolaid
Because we are all self sufficient adults now.
I’ll tell you the real reason
Nobody wants Koolaid.
Thursday, October 13, 2005.
It’s 3AM. I’m eight years old.
I have a spelling test at 8AM.
Dad wakes me and my siblings.
Marches us to the kitchen.
Standing at attention in birth order.
“When you drink the last bit of Koolaid,
You make new Koolaid.”
A household law.
“So who drank the last bit of Koolaid?”
We lie in unison.
“I don’t know. It wasn’t me.”
Dad assigns us each a job.
One to choose the flavor and add it to the container.
One to add the water.
One to add the sugar.
The last one is to stir.
It’s 3AM.
We’re making Koolaid.
This was not a one time deal.
No, an almost regular occurrence.
We used to whine for Koolaid.
As we got older we whined about having to make it.
At 3AM when we were sleeping
Dad was getting ready for work
To provide for us the things we wanted
As well as the things we needed
That’s why we made Koolaid
For him to take his meds and go to work.
Nobody wants KoolAid
Because we’ve been trained not to want for it
But to make it ourselves, or make it together
For someone else.
I never thought I’d appreciate something
That at first seemed so trivial. A beverage.
My parents raised kind, caring children
Who no longer want Koolaid,
But would gladly make some
For someone else.
Wherever I go,
I strain to hear Mom and Dad’s voices too,
but I’m living on my own now,
And nobody wants Koolaid.