When the Cool Kids wouldn’t Play with Me

Once, when I was five, all the Yoder relatives came to our house for a visit.

The adults spent their time doing adult things like reading and giving back rubs.

Yoders, for the record, are obsessed with reading.

Of course the children played, like children do.

My sister Amy, who was two years older than me, and my cousin Jason, one year older, were very cool. They played together a lot. Like, they pretty much had a clique going on.

Mom thought they were adorable and took lots of pictures of them.

They never let me play with them.

I specifically remember trying to help them paint on the porch. They told me to get lost.

Only they didn’t actually use the words “get lost.”

I don’t remember what words they actually used.

But the most amazing thing they did was make a miniature zoo. They cut pictures of animals out of sale papers and stuck them in the cracks of a huge old stump.

I was so desperate to be a part of their amazing zoo that I actually made it into those pictures.

I kept asking them, “what do I do now? Do you want this in your zoo? Can I do this?”

They just ignored me.

It was a very sad experience.