Saturday, January 10, 2004

TINYTUNA ON THE ROOF
It became painfully clear last night that I misnamed my child nine years ago. She's not TinyTuna. She's YentaTuna. And the light of her true personality decided to stop hiding under the proverbial bushel last night. In public. Unfortunately, there was no test drive of the 2004 model year persona. No such luck. She came out, matchmaker guns a’ blazing, right in the midst of appetizers.

GramTuna, TinyTuna and I were at the home of old and dear family friends. Parents PeaceTuna and PictureTuna, daughter PBSTuna, and PBS's boyfriend....uh, BoyfriendTuna (this gets harder and harder sometimes). TinyTuna, always happy to have a crowd on hand was blathering on and on to whomever would listen to her. Shy any? Um, no. So, TinyTuna plants herself on the couch, smack dab in between PBSTuna and BoyfriendTuna and starts grilling them. I kid you not, this was hard-core parental-type grilling. Now TinyTuna has met PBSTuna once or twice in the past, briefly, but never the Boyfriend. Strangers? Manners? Safe topics of conversation? Um, no.

Energized with cheese, crackers and Sprite, TinyTuna morphed into her true being. YentaTuna then turned to Boyfriend and said rather out of the blue-ishly, "I think you two should get married."

Now, I cannot speak for anyone else but myself at this point, but my thoughts bounced back and forth between "Oh no. Please, please be quiet," and "HaHa BoyfriendTuna! Glad it's not me!"

BoyfriendTuna, declaring, "tis but a scratch," took her pronouncement in stride and said, "You do? Why is that?" YentaTuna, not missing a beat said, "Because you love each other."

This remark had been executed with amazing skill. It was equal parts innocent coyness and cute eyelash batting. It was classic Crouching Tiny, Hidden Yenta.

Now, I cannot speak for anyone else by myself at this point, but my thoughts bounced back and forth between "Oh no. Please, please be quiet," and "Pass the cheese."

BoyfriendTuna, declaring "it's only a flesh wound," took her pronouncement in stride and said, "Well you know, I've been thinking about it."

Fatal error. Foolish, foolish Boyfriend. Foolish person unaware of the wiles of the weeTuna. She had him right where she wanted him. If he had only known, he would have steered the conversation in another direction. In ANY other direction. I could have helped him, but I was enjoying the show too much to interfere. She had set him up; she had batted her eyelashes, and now it was time to go for the kill.

YentaTuna shot him the look of "duhhhh" that only a nine-year old can make, and said in an exasperated voice, "Well you should stop THINKING about it and just DO IT."

So much for manners. So much for stranger protocol. So much for safe topics of conversation. The room erupted into gales of laughter. While PBSTuna turned eight shades of "I'm not inviting THEM again," YentaTuna morphed back into TinaTuna, happily munching her cheese and crackers.

What I'm sure they didn't hear was the unspoken conversation that was occurring while YentaTuna was in full swing.

Boyfriend means love. Loves means getting married. Getting married means a ceremony. A ceremony means lots of people looking at the flower girl. A flower girl means a dress. A dress means a fancy dress. A fancy dress means a super twirly to the power of ten dress. A super twirly to the power of ten dress means a sparkly purse to match. A sparkly purse to match means painted fingernails.

You should stop THINKING about it and just DO IT.

I'm not getting any younger, you know...
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