The Kids' Table

You all know what I'm talking about. The kids' table was always the fold-up card table with an old, over-washed tablecloth. Your mother or grandmother tried so hard to dress it up but everyone knew it had spent the previous year in the basement, leaning against some lonely wall until the annual family Thanksgiving/Christmas gathering. Until that morning, the table had probably been covered in dust and cobwebs until Grandma wiped it down and covered it with that God-awful 1950s Ozzy and Harriett mess of a tablecloth. Then, the youngest children would be crammed in at said table to eat their holiday dinner. Usually the older teenagers served as temporary babysitters, stop-gaps to keep the little kids from making it into the fancy dining room with the extremely breakable china and parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles dressed to the nines for a dinner that would be consumed in minutes. The teenagers were, of course, biding their time until college when, as 18-year-old freshmen, they could consider themselves adults and ready for the "big" table.

I hated the kids' table. For me, the kids' table was a punishment. It certainly wasn't an escape from the adults, a place to throw mashed potatoes and continue playtime with my cousins. In fact, the kids' table at my grandparents' house wasn't any fun at all. At least, it wasn't fun for me.

Up until age 9, our major holidays were spent with my mother's family: her father, step-mother, sister, brother, nephews, step-sister, and step-nieces. I looked up to my older step-cousin Ann (bear with me - that's her middle name - just trying to be polite with the identities of others) and her younger sister Lynn. Although they lived out in the "boonies" they seemed so much more aware of life and the world around them. Ann was certainly the prettiest of us three, they both wore stylish, preppy clothes, and listened to Blondie, for chrissake. I couldn't compete in the looks, clothes, or music departments, but I loved playing with them. My other cousins, Lee and Alan, were just - strange. Too serious for kids aged 5 and 7 and I felt I could never connect with them. Even four years ago, at the tender age of 29, when Lee died of a drug overdose I couldn't mourn his passing. I didn't know him.

The kids' table was a place out of time for me. The cousins all got along with one another and left me out of most conversations or laughed at what I said. I felt more at ease with the adults - adults who, except for my parents, acted as if speaking with me were an inconvenience. They didn't get me and my adult-speak coming from a 9-year-old larynx was probably disconcerting. I was an honest, intelligent child who got on their nerves.

So, there I sat at the kids' table, too precocious for the other kids, too annoying and young for the adults, at an in-between place that was uncomfortable for all. I wish now there had been a third table, a Heather table, where I could have sat alone with my meal and a book.

I think I would have been happier.