Tonight, I'll share a memory. The keys clinking away in the dark, here's hoping I don't wake up the babe.

At the end of one summer, around my 6th birthday, my mom filled the little blow-up pool that sat in our backyard with a mixture of bleach and water. We had been on vacation the week prior and the rain, coupled with neglect, had left this little pool with green algae growing on the bottom and up the sides.

While my mom went back inside, waiting for the bleach to do its "thing", I sat at the pool's edge staring at the water. I was still watching as a fly suddenly landed on top of the water. Struggling, he tried feverishly to make his way out of the bleach water, but to no avail. Minutes later, his lifeless body lay floating in this insect death trap / pool.
I then ran inside to relay what I had just witnessed to my mother. Though why I thought watching a fly die in a pool of bleach was noteworthy, I'll never know. Anyway, I told my mom all about this fly, thinking... I don't know, that she'd be impressed, only to have her yell at me for such heartlessness. I was mortified. I didn't know watching a disgusting insect die was wrong. I was 5 and unaware of the horrific side effects of bleach. OH NO! My mother certainly schooled me on the burning eyes, lungs, throat, and skin that this little fly had endured. AND, after a good twenty minute rant about my cruelty came to an end, I sulked my way back outside.

It must have been a boring day with nothing better to do, because suddenly I had an idea; a way to right my wrong. I'd have a funeral for this poor little fly I killed. So, I gathered the casket (a pink plastic Easter egg), dug a small grave, and began the ceremony.
"Oh please Lord," I prayed on my knees next to this fly in an Easter egg. At the end of my prayer, I picked up the egg to close it tight before burying it, and wouldn't you know, that little fly got up a flew away. Now THIS I had to tell my mom...

She was not impressed. Man, what's a girl gotta do? I bring a fly back to life through the power of prayer and I still can't set things right.
Her response was something about the fly going off and dying a miserable death where my eyes couldn't witness it. Which, of course, was probably true, but then again... it was a fucking fly. Who cares?
Apparently 5 year old girls with nothing better to do.