Altoids, Mcdonalds, and Mystery

In elementary school, the most magical man I knew was Mike the bus driver. His face was withered and tan like an old baseball mitt and he smelled like mystery. Sitting in the front row I learned all about whittling and making police radar guns. Mike claimed to have another job as a member of the team chosen to create the design for the police "laser gun," and sadly he could not disclose any of their secrets. He aptly simplified the police instrument, to an image in my head that looked like a sophisticated Nerf gun. I begged him for other life secrets, but was bored by details of his divorce. Plans for his upcoming space odyssey were not forthcoming, but I waited patiently.
I still pass Mike at school some times. His smell of mystery was actually cigar smoke and wet dog. His blond hair is long and flat and sticks to his forehead in a menacing way. I am beginning to doubt how much he knows about police lasers, and this depresses me. I am still puzzled over how much I admired this man, when it is clear that he was lying to me, just messing with me in fact. I still think he is a nice guy, but my childhood image of him is forever shattered.
Old people smell like knitting wool and milk, it’s a generally appreciated fact. Knowing this as a child is ok because it doesn't affect you in any drastic way. It is the same with daddy likes his gin and tonic and private parts are to be kept a secret. Growing up and examining why these things are the way they are is a typically sad and disappointing experience.
My babysitter Rose took care of me and my sister for the first ten years we lived in Colorado. She was a small lady with a completely indecipherable age. She could have passed for a sixty year old, or someone on the verge of ninety. This was due in large part to her yellow-tinted wig that was completely motionless and utterly frightening. Despite my deeply harbored fear of seeing Rose wig-less, I thought that she was perfect in every way. She could make perfect mac and cheese, introduced me to Altoids and McDonald’s fries, and never rose her voice above a loud whisper. I was very upset to find that she was completely capable of evil and had a wider repertoire of swear words stored in her arsenal than I. Just as I'm sure she was displeased to find that I liked to pee in used water bottles and hide them under the sink to see how much I could pee in a day.
The first time I learned of Rose’s wrath I was acting like a particularly awesome rogue because my friend Mark was over and we didn’t have to obey the normal bed time. We had these steps at my house that you could see through, kind of like the rungs of a ladder, so I distinctly remember looking at her pinched face through the tiny space in between steps. She insisted that bed time was bed time no matter who was over. Mark was at my back, egging me on. After first begging and then making angry empty threats I said the dirtiest thing I could think of: "You just want us to go to bed so you can have sex with your boooyfriend." This really makes no sense because not only did Rose not have a boyfriend, but I had recently met her husband at our Christmas party. Also, Rose was extremely old, and not one for sex in my opinion. At this, Rose basically shot out of her wig in an effort to catch me and make me apologize. I sprinted into my room and laughed until I realized that Rose would call my mom to report my misbehavior. I picked up the phone in the hall way and listened in on the conversation. I picked up on it mid-sentence:
"...right to my face, to my face!"
"That just doesn’t sound like Taylor, but he does seem to act this way around his friends. He seems especially keen to please Mark."
"Well either way, Sherrye, I’m sorry, but he is being a little shit."
I was in complete shock. That was a dirty, dirty word. I completely forgot about being covert, and screamed at Rose. Actually I don’t think I said anything, I think I just let out a high pitched whine that evolved into a sound a mother makes during childbirth, and then to uncontrolled sobs.
Things just weren’t the same with Rose from then on. Her mac and cheese was tainted to me, and having her hovering over my shoulder during my reading of Highlights the magazine made me cringe. This was only my first revelation in a series, others being that most every adult is unhappy, waterbeds are not all that they are made out to be, peeing out the window has its consequences, and McDonald’s makes you fat.