Work Text:
It was another normal day, or so I thought. As I was getting dressed for school, I heard my mother call saying how it was snowing and that school was canceled for today. I quickly got changed into some comfier and warmer clothes better fit for the snow. As I made my way to the kitchen, I saw my mother, Edna Turnblad, making breakfast while simultaneously ironing a dress. I greeted her and grabbed some of the warm pancakes she had made along with some fresh berries. I sat down and stared out the window watching the light snow peacefully fall down on to the streets below. My mother joined me soon after and we quietly ate together with some small talk. After we finished eating, I went into our cramped living room to turn on the Corny Collins Show, but the snow had canceled the show for today. I sighed in defeat and sat back down on to the couch. Looking out into the streets below, I saw little kids enjoying the fresh snow, remembering when I was younger seeing snow for the first time. It was a magical experience.
I got bored after a while and decided to look at some of the books we had collected over the years. There were my school year books, children’s books, dance books, and a scrapbook that I had never seen before. I take it out and see that it doesn’t have a title. It is a pretty heavy book, consisting of colorful paper and sticky notes popping out of it everywhere. I sit back down and open the cover to reveal high school photos of what appears to be my mom and dad.
“Mom?” I call seeing if she was busy or not.
“What?” She yells from what seems to be the kitchen.
“Are you busy? I found something I have a few questions about,” I reply.
She walks in wiping her hands off on a towel, “No, just finished washing the dishes. What’s up?”
She sits down next to me and I show her the book if found. She looks startled for a moment, but then grins as if I just won the lottery. She looks and me and says, “You just found you father and I’s old scrapbook before you were born.”
I look back down at the book and turn to the next page and see it’s a picture of my dad when it seems he was in high school. “Ah, yes. Did you know that before you father got gray hair he had really wavy blonde hair, almost like Velma’s? It sadly turned black and then later gray as the years progressed. His eyes were a bright blue that shone brighter than anything you have ever seen,” she rambled. I looked at my mother and saw that she was off remembering her high school years.
“What else do I not know about? It seems that he has changed over the years, hasn’t he?”
My mother looks down at me and smiles, “Well, what do you want to know?”
I think for a moment until I decide on his high school years.
“High school, that was a difficult time for both of us. I was the kid no one really liked and your father, well, everyone loved him. He made everyone laugh and smile even on a dark and dreary day. He was the loud, creative, and caring student that was always there for teachers and students. During some talent shows, he would try to perform some magic, but he ended up failing most of the time. I remember once he accidentally released a cage full of doves and the whole school had to leave.” I laughed. That definitely sound like something my dad would do. I flipped to the next page. It was of both my mom and dad in the library asleep next to each other presumably studying a few minutes prior. I continued to flip through the pages and saw that more and more of them had my dad and mom together.
“Tell me how you and dad met?” I questioned. I’m sure I heard the story somewhere, but I can’t really remember it.
My mom chuckled, “Well, we were both in our last year of high school when we actually started talking. He ran into me on his way to class one day and we both spilled all of our books. We started cleaning them up and we actually talked after that. I guess we just hit it off after he asked me to prom later in the year.” I smiled, that was actually pretty cute. I wonder if Link will take me to prom. ‘That’s not the point’ I think as I shake my head. I flip to the next page and see it was their prom photo. My mom looked gorgeous in the dress and my dad looked as happy as ever. His lanky frame was dressed in a tight black tux with a blue bow tie. The next few photos were of college, when they got married, and then moving into their first apartment, the very same one we live in now.
“Hey mom, why did dad want to open a joke shop?” I inquire because I don’t recall ever being told why.
“Oh, well, he was named after his Great-Grandfather who was also quite the jokester, so I guess he just wanted to follow in his footsteps. You know how he always loves to play pranks on us? Well, he just found a passion in making people laugh. He opened it a few years before you were born and it just grew in popularity soon after its first anniversary.” I go to the next page and see it’s a picture of my dad handing candy to crying kids with a guilty look on his face. Before I can even ask what happened, my mom was laughing like she just heard the funniest joke ever. The laughing slowed into a chuckle she said, “I love that photo. Your father one day thought that it would be a great idea of scare a group a of young children. So, he put on a dinosaur mask, hid behind a pile of stuffed animals, and waited. When the group came in and passed by the stuffed animals, he jumped out at them and scared them half to death. The kids started crying almost immediately and the mothers yelled at your father. He felt so bad that he gave all the kids a free toy and a piece of candy.” We shared a laugh before turning to the next page.
It was a page full of pictures of me from when I was an infant to middle school. I quickly flipped passed those pages so I didn’t have to relive the nightmare of younger me. I soon got the last page of scrapbook to see it empty. I was about to ask why the last page was empty when my father walked through the door.
“Hey, why are you still inside? We should be out in the snow enjoying it before its all gone!” he exclaims. I look to my mother and we nod. I get up and place the book onto our dinning table before dressing in winter clothes and following my father outside. We play in the snow for a couple of hours, make a few snowmen, and have a couple snowball fights. I take a few photos and I know exactly what is going to be on the last empty page.