Erma Bombeck Writing Competition - Winners
2006
Erma Bombeck Writing Competition
Honorable Mention
Human Interest - Global
Ava Miller
Argyle, Texas
"Aunt Sookie, Recycled Before Her Time"
| I guess she had another name but we just called her Aunt Sookie. Short and chunky, her wirey gray hair had a life of its own. Aunt Sookie wasn’t scary, just strange. She saved everything, grocery sacks, empty thread spools, rubber bands; you name it, she saved it. Mom said it was because she lived through ‘The Great Depression.’ The thing I never understood was Aunt Sookie’s fascination with aluminum foil. She’d save every scrap of foil that caught her eye. We ate at Dairy Queen; she’d save everyone’s sandwich foil. We ate pie at Grandma’s; Aunt Sookie would squirrel away the foil pie cover and stick it into her purse. We ate fried fish at Uncle Donnie’s, same thing. You could smell her purse coming a mile away. She stood on a cement block to reach her kitchen sink. She’d scrub and soak every scrap of foil she’d pilfered for the day and clothespin them to a line to dry. Then she’d iron them flat, and store them in the bottom hutch drawer. Aunt Sookie never, ever, used them and the pile grew bigger and bigger. She lived several hours from us and once our overnight visit fell on Halloween. Mom had already gone home when my brother and I went to unpack our ‘trick or treat’ costumes. There was my beautiful Princess costume but we couldn’t find my brother’s Superman costume. Being 6 years old, he started to cry. Aunt Sookie came into the room and I told we couldn’t find his costume. I offered to carry a pillowcase and gather candy for him. I’d even throw in a safety check and eat my favorites, a trick I learned from Dad. Aunt Sookie grabbed my brother’s hand and dragged him into the kitchen, stopping at the bottom hutch drawer. For the next 30 minutes, I watched in amazement. My brother transformed into the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz as Aunt Sookie wrapped her tin foil collection around him. She even wrapped the silver foil around a big plastic funnel, for a hat. He only cried twice. Once when she put lipstick on him and believe me I would have cried, too. Aunt Sookie had a hard time putting lipstick on her own lips, let alone someone else’s. He cried again when I told him if we had a lightning storm; he’d be the first to go. I know my brother would’ve rather been Superman and not smelled like fried fish that Halloween; but Aunt Sookie cared enough to use her precious tin foil for him. To this day, I still feel bad, because that Superman costume was stuffed under my bed at home. |