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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>The Taste of Curiosity<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'>"Sexy Meleski! Woo! Woo! Woo!" <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'>Mrs. Meleski lived down and across the street, two doors from my friend Theresa. We knew that Mr. Meleski left in the morning for work and came home at the end of the day. The doors and windows were usually closed, even in the summer and we didn't see Mrs. Meleski outside. She didn't sit on the front porch or hang clothes on a line in the backyard like all of the moms and other neighbor ladies. We didn't see her at Great Scott on Friday nights when we went grocery shopping. Nobody ran into her at the beauty shop or the dentists. We didn't see her at Don's Drug Store getting medicine, birthday cards, or magazines. She or Mr. Meleski must have gone there though, because they gave out pumpkin seeds for Halloween and Don's sold them for a Nickel a box.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'>The fact that Mrs. Meleski gave out Pumpkin seeds for Halloween was one of the few things that we knew about her. The other things that we knew were that she was Theresa's mother's sister, her name was Jean, and that she and Theresa's mother didn't speak to each other. Theresa didn't remember her Aunt ever coming to her house and she had never been to her house, not even for Halloween. She and her sister Joanie weren't allowed to go there. They would wait on the sidewalk while the rest of us would go to the door, Mrs. Meleski would put exactly four pumpkin seeds in our bags, say something we didn't understand, we would say "thank you," and walk back to the sidewalk.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'>So on a hot afternoon near the end of August, Theresa and I had run out of things to do. We were tired of playing Barbies, coloring, and riding the tandem bike. We had made our trip to Don's and ate all of the candy that a quarter could buy. We started with the butterfingers before the chocolate got all melty, ate Sweet Tarts until our mouths tasted funny and sucked every last bit of the sower, fizzy centers from our zots. We had finished off all of the pumpkin seeds that crunched and tasted salty and a little like the cardboard box that they came in. There was nothing more to say about school starting soon. We did and didn't want it to start.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'>We were bored, until I brought up the subject of Theresa's aunt. We wondered if we could make her come out of the house. We talked about calling her name over and over again in a singsong voice until she would get mad or curious and come out. Theresa thought it would be good to make up a cheer but we didn’t know any cheers. We searched our seven and nine-year-old vocabularies for a word that would rhyme with “Meleski.” The best and really bad word that we came up with was “sexy!” The rest just fell into place.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'>We were in the second round of our chant, about to get to our favorite part, the "Woo! Woo! Woo!" when Joanie opened the back door. She stepped out on the porch and hissed, "You shut up right now! If you don't stop, Theresa, Mom's gonna ground you and I'm gonna tell Mrs. Kaiser."<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'>We froze with the beginning of a "woo" formed on our open mouths. Joanie didn't yell but we felt like we were already in trouble. Theresa didn't want to be grounded and I sure didn't want Joanie telling my mother anything.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'>Theresa and I didn't say a word until Joanie was back in the house and we were sure she wasn't coming back. We tried to find other things to talk about and eventually moved on to something else.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'>We forgot about Mrs. Meleski until Halloween. We all went out as witches, ghosts, pumpkins, clowns and bums. As usual, when we got to the Meleski's house, Theresa and Joanie waited on the sidewalk. We went to the door, and before we could say, "trick or treat," Mrs. Meleski was there with her pumpkin seeds. She counted out four for each of us, said something that we didn't understand, we said, "thank you," and we were on our way.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'>When my sister Laura and I got home, tired and weighed down by large bags of candy, our mother was waiting and ready to do her inspection. Anything that wasn't wrapped, or looked like the wrapper had been opened went into the garbage. My mother said that bad things could be in unwrapped candy. Mrs. Meleski's pumpkin seeds never made it into the candy bowl until that year. Somehow, two of the four small, almost flat, unwrapped seeds escaped my mother's scrutiny. I made the discovery the next day after school. I was tempted to eat them right away, in case my mother found them but I remembered that something bad might be in anything unwrapped.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'>A couple of days went by and curiosity overcame fear. I took the two pumpkin seeds from the bottom of my candy bowl and went into my room. If something bad happened, I wanted to be in my room. I put them to my lips and pulled my hand back quickly. Then, before I could chicken out, I put both pumpkin seeds in my mouth and chewed them fast. Nothing happened. They didn't taste bad, or funny, or anything. They weren't crunchy anymore and they just tasted like salt, peanut butter, Sweet Tart, and bazooka bubble gum. There was still a hint of that cardboard box taste and maybe the flat, bitter taste of disappointment. I felt relieved that I wasn’t poisoned and my mother didn’t run into my room with sudden knowledge that I had just ate unwrapped pumpkin seeds. Nothing happened at all.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'>Now that I knew that Mrs. Meleski’s pumpkin seeds were just ordinary, boxed pumpkin seeds, like the ones that we bought from Don’s every week, I wanted to know more. What was she really like and what did she say to us every year when she put the seeds in our bags on Halloween? Why four, always four? I discovered that curiosity feeds knowledge and Knowledge feeds curiosity. It was an endless and crazy circle. Knowledge, like candy and pumpkin seeds comes in all flavors, sometimes sweet, sometimes sour, and sometimes just a little bitter. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>