First Words

You’re writing your autobiography. What’s your opening sentence?

My first words are tricky. You see I think I did – Mum and Dad and want and give – , but then I hit a problem. I stopped speaking. I probably came very close to being non-verbal. My parents checked my hearing and such and there was no issues. I just wasn’t talking.

I guess that there was a possibility that I would have been non-verbal, but for one thing – food.

I love food.

Always have and probably always will. Yes, this makes me somewhat rotund.

So, back as a child, although I don’t remember, my mum and dad say that I suddenly used a full sentence… “Please pass me the tomato sauce.”

I find it strange as I’m not particularly enamoured with tomato sauce now, but at the time I must have been completely frustrated at not being able to get the condiment of my choice.

After that, I was speaking, almost as if a blockage had been removed. I wouldn’t keep quiet.

Of course, this led to my first words in front of my dad’s family. Think of his family as pretty strict Indians, so children were seen but rarely heard. My dad’s mum was pretty scary.

I’m a tiny kid and have been given a pack of crisps, it is almost as big as me and I’m having a problem not to stand on the bottom edge as I carry it. My mum is in the kitchen with Aunty B and my dad is in the living room with his mum and the rest of the family. I’m wandering from the kitchen to the living room through the open plan dining room. The conversation has dulled for a moment and there is an unusual moment of almost silence.

I step on that troublesome corner and the bag pulls from my hand. The bag and the crisps tumble to the floor and I stand there with my hands on my hips in a tiny black velvet dress, hair in two plaits and I’m guessing looking very Wednesday Addams.

“Oh, shit.”

My first words in front of the family that my parents so wanted to impress. I think it only appropriate that the first line of my autobiography has to be.

“Oh, shit.”

Followed my the cackles of laughter from my mum and Aunty B.