Pockets in my Pockets

I was in first grade. It was the first time I would eat dinner at a friend’s house. I was excited. Being the youngest I always longed to be ‘old enough’ to do all of the cool things my three older sisters could do…going to a friend’s house for dinner was one of those many things.

Julie and I played all afternoon and had a blast. Then supper came. We sat down with her parents and older brother. Julie was excited about what was for supper. I, on the other hand, was in pure panic mode.

“What are those?”

“Oh, they’re pizza pockets. They’re just like pizza. You’ll love them,” Julie’s mom assured me.

I was NOT convinced. We had never had pizza pockets at my house. They didn’t look or smell like real pizza. I took one small bite and realized that I had a real problem on my hands. This being my first time eating over at a friend’s house I wasn’t going to make them mad by telling them that I didn’t like the meal they were all noticably excited about. So, what does a 6-year old girl do in this situation? Well, I proceeded to ‘fake’ bites while then hiding the ‘pocket’ in my fist, while very discretely transferring the ‘pocket’ into my very own jean pockets. Yep. All 8 of them, shoved into my jean pockets. I’ll never forget the consistency of the smooshed breading and the warmth of the sauce oozing through the not-so-thick pocket fabric onto my leg. I’m sure they had no clue, right?

My mom reassured me later that evening as she made me a grilled cheese sandwich that it, in fact, would’ve been fine if I had just told them I didn’t like the pizza pockets. I think this was after she scraped all of the remains out of my pizza stained pockets. Thanks, Mom.

I was reminded of this experience today in the frozen pizza section of the grocery store. It’s funny what will conjure up memories from years ago.