Naivety, Part One

I was something of a naïve child, a trait that my older brothers often exploited mercilessly. Take Paul David, for example. He once taught me to juggle, which I at first took to be quite a wonderful thing. Little did I realize that it was only a prelude to a prank.

Paul David taught me to juggle using tennis balls, and I got quite good at it, although I could never do more than three at a time. One day, my brother asked me to demonstrate my skills and I proudly displayed them using our well worn set of tennis balls.

“Hmph,” he muttered.

“What?” I demanded.

“Tennis balls are easy,” he replied.

“I can juggle three acorns,” I said. “Or three rocks.”

“Sure.  But….”

“But what?”

“Come with me.”

I dutifully followed my brother into the kitchen where he opened the icebox and took out three eggs. He offered them to me.

“Juggle these,” he said.

I took the eggs. They were cool and smooth to the touch, and smaller than the tennis balls. Of course, the eggs would break if I dropped them and the balls wouldn’t. But I figured it couldn’t be that much different and I had lots of experience.

“All right,” I said, and started to walk past him into the back yard.

“No, no,” he said. “Do it here.”

Irritated, I decided that I would just show him. I tossed the first egg up, prepared the second, panicked at the thought of dropping them, and as quickly as that two eggs went splat on the kitchen floor.

Paul David laughed and laughed.

I got to clean up the yolk.

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