Hot tub time machine
By Liz Biggs
We’ve had a trampoline in our backyard for almost 20 years. I have wonderful memories of the kids jumping on it — all four of them together trying to knock each other over (fry, bacon!) or individually when they learned how to do high-flying flips and toe touches. If I ever felt lethargic during the day, I would go outside and jump to wake up and get my blood flowing. Alas, all good things must come to an end, and our beloved trampoline recently dry rotted and rusted beyond repair.
Now we have a big round patch of dead grass in our backyard that makes me sad. We’ve never had a pool, so I suggested to my husband that we get a hot tub. But I’m not sure if I really want a hot tub. Somebody would have to clean it and maintain it, and I hate the smell of chlorine. What I really want is a hot tub time machine.
If I’m being honest, I truly don’t want to go back in time and stay there. I worked way too hard to get to the comfy place that I’m in right now. And dang, I love all the amazing people in my life, especially my four Bigglets. But, oh how fun it would be to get in that hot tub time machine for just a little snippet of time — to relive a few glorious moments.
Where would my first stop be? Hmm, maybe Sacred Heart School? It was fun, but there was no air conditioning back then and I got bored in church a lot so maybe not. But I’d love to go back to those carefree days of playing paper football on classroom desks on rainy days. Remember folding paper into a tight triangle and flicking it over (but not off) the edge of the desk for a touchdown? And flicking it between your opponent’s thumb and forefingers for a field goal?
In eighth grade I was “going steady” with a sixth-grade boy. He had blue eyes, dark wavy hair and dimples. (All the popular eighth grade boys smoked cigarettes, and since my mom smoked, that wasn’t cool to me.) He would get a hall pass and I’d meet him at the water fountain, where we would nervously flirt and giggle until we were sent back to class. One day, he kicked a folded triangular-shaped note to me from the hall when the teacher wasn’t looking. It said, “Foxy” and had a pencil drawing of a cute girly fox and a boy with hearts for eyes. I think I smiled for three days straight. Of course, we had to break up when I went off to high school, but I’ll never forget every Thursday when I jumped up onto the handlebars of his banana-seat bike and he took me to my piano lesson. We usually stopped at B&H, the convenience store next to J’s Bakery, for bubblegum. My piano teacher, sweet Dolly Davis, had a little hand sculpture on her piano. I was ordered to put my gum in the hand during my lesson, but could pop it back in my mouth after. Yes, I’d love to go back to a foxy-football-note-passing-eighth-grade Thursday in my hot tub time machine.
High school didn’t have air conditioning either, so I wouldn’t stop there for long. Maybe I’d go back to the day I got my orange Gremlin and drove it into the parking lot for the first time, blasting the Gap Band’s “Burn Rubber on Me” (with the windows open, because my car didn’t have air conditioning either). Or maybe I’d go back to that one day in the hall outside the anatomy classroom where they were dissecting frogs and it smelled like formaldehyde. A popular, older boy — the Jordan Catalano of our high school — looked my way. The football player who made all the girls swoon when he would stick out his lower lip and breathe out, blowing his perfect hair up into the air, looked at me. I immediately looked behind me, thinking there must be a cute cheerleader. When I nervously looked back at him, he laughed and stared me straight in the eye. We only had one date — he drove a silver truck and loved country music, which I had never heard before. Every time I hear Johnny Lee’s “Lookin’ for Love,” I think of him. He was kind, and informed me he wasn’t looking for love so I should probably date someone my own age.
Would I go back to my college days? Probably the most fun four years of my life, but dang those classes were hard and I had to work too many jobs to pay for it. I’d transport back to Mobile for Mardi Gras though — Joe Cain Day was a blast. And maybe flash back for a few road trips and late nights.
But maybe we should just plant flowers in the sad patch of grass. Maybe I’ll just stay home in the air conditioning with all my vivid memories dancing in my head. Maybe it’s better to write about them than try to relive them.
