Holey-Moley

I’m an only child who grew up in rural Virginia. It’s not that we lived in the sticks, but we were far enough from town that it wasn’t possible to run across the street and be in my best friend’s yard.  Since the concept of an eight year old driving a car is frowned upon, and my teleportation skills are lacking, visits with my friends were usually premeditated, and far between. Because I didn’t have brothers or sisters and had to fill copious amounts of time on my own, I developed some creative friendships.

At one point in my young life, I had a pet leaf named Holey-Molely.

I think I took his name from my mom saying “holey-moley” as a substitute swear word.  At any rate, I found this pitiful dead leaf as I was exploring the yard one day. It was dried up and dead, and had little bite marks from caterpillars and bugs. I think if it had been left there for much longer, it would have crumbled into dust, but for whatever reason, I felt a certain kinship with this little leaf.

We became friends. Yes. I was a desperate country child who made friends with leaves. Don’t judge me. Leaves deserve love, too.

Holey-Moley he ate birds- preferably robins, but really, whatever poor feathered soul happened to land in the yard would do. I spent many an afternoon chasing after them, pet leaf-friend in hand, screaming at the top of my lungs that the birds would be “Holey-Moley’s Dinner!” Sometimes I practiced sneaking up on them. I got pretty close once or twice. But they tended to figure out what was going on before we could pounce.

I’m in college now, and I’ve put aside my biodegradable friends (mostly). I don’t remember quite how the subject of Holey-Moley arose, but recently my mom and I found ourselves discussing him. Our conversation went something like this:

Jess: Holey-Moley was my pet leaf.

Mom: Yeah, but you tried to feed him to the birds.

…This is when I realized that my mom had completely misunderstood that part of my life. Now, mind you, I am twenty years old. That means that for twelve years, my mom has lived with misinformation. Naturally, I felt it necessary to correct her, so…

Jess: That’s so silly! Birds don’t eat leaves!

Mom: Then what were you doing?

Jess: I was feeding the birds to Holey-Moley.

Mom: But he’s a leaf.

Jess: Yes.

Mom: So it’s silly to think that birds eat leaves, but leaves eating birds is okay?

Jess: Exactly.

My poor mother.