by Gabe Willows

Created on: June 01, 2008   Last Updated: June 09, 2008

Uncle Albert's Visit

My Uncle Albert was a free spirit of sorts. He came to visit once a month and would teach us so many unusual things. My mother used to say, "We spend the entire month un-programming this kid after he leaves."

On one particular occasion, Uncle Albert took us out to the cemetery where his wife had been buried. As he wandered around he ate field strawberries that grew amongst the tombstones. I reached down and picked a handful of berries when "WACK" my mother slapped the back of my hand and strawberries went splattering against my Aunt's tomb stone. My mother immediately pulled a tissue from her pocket and started cleaning the stone, "Goodness child," she said as she scrubbed the stone, "don't you know that there's dead people juice in those berries." Well that was the last time I ate cemetery berries.

Uncle Albert continued to stroll amongst the stones and I ran to his side. As we walked together we found a luscious rose bush. The roses glistened in the sunlight still damp from the morning dew. Uncle Albert reached out, picked the flower right off the stem and took a huge bite. He chewed as though he had just sampled ambrosia "Little one, look at that rose. Did you know that you can eat roses?" As I reached out to pick a rose my mother had arrived and gave me the raised eye brow' and silently mouthed the word "juice" I slowly put my hand down and continued on with Uncle Albert. I figured I'd try that at home.

Later that day, we returned to the house. My parents had quite a large garden. My father loved growing roses of every kind along the perimeter of the property. I waited for every one to go inside and walked over to the rose bushes. As I was going to pick one, my two friends joined me. "Hey what you doing?" my friend Jennifer said. "Nothing." I answered. Tim who was rather a large child that we nick named Moocher, piped up, "Do you have anything to eat?" I looked at him and smiled, "Yup, I sure do; see those roses over there, they're eatable." I said with a smile. "No way! Are you sure?" came Jennifer's response. I immediately picked one and shoved it in my mouth. "See they're great, I've been eating them all morning with my Uncle Albert." I exaggerated.

Between the three of us, we must have eaten dozen roses each. I woke up the next morning to a strange and unusual stomach cramp. I was really not feeling well when my father slammed the door on his way back into the house. "Can someone please explain to me what the Hell happened to my roses!" I got up and ran to the window and although I was going to act surprised, I was shocked to see that every single rose along the entire perimeter of the property was gone. "Oh my gosh Dad, I have no idea!" came my half true response: Then, it his me. That cramp had turned into an upset stomach and then everything else you can imagine to go with it. "Okay then," my father had responded as I ran off to the washroom retching, "I just wanted to let you know that if you're going to eat roses, you need to wash them first because I sprayed them with some bug killer."

I knew I wasn't alone. Jennifer, Tim and I most certainly hadn't eaten all those roses. Jennifer's mother called, then Tim's mom; both Tim and Jennifer were sick too. Then I thought I'd better own up to the deed. When I confessed to my father, he began to laugh at me; as it turned out all the kids in the neighborhood had sampled the roses. There were no kids outside playing for a whole three days. I'll never forget my mother's words to my father, "Alright, now could you please get Albert on the phone, we spend weeks un-programming this kid every time he comes to visit.

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