Annie Share - Not So Sweet

 

Annie Share.So, as seems to be true for many of us here tonight, my first enemy and friend was blood related. My brother and I would fight constantly growing up. We'd fight about everything from which blockbuster movie to rent, to who was better at Dance Dance Revolution, which was me, to who had the worst bowl cut, which was also me. [audience laughter] The only thing that we didn't really fight about was who was really to blame for our tumultuous relationship, which we could agree on was our parents. But looking back now, I think that more specifically, the real root of our siblinghood rivalry was the gumdrop tree. 

 

So, to backtrack a little bit, when my brother and I were born, our parents planted a tree for each of us in the backyard. My tree was a beautiful tree that blossomed big white flowers. I really had no complaints about my tree, except compared to my brother's tree. And his tree was also this beautiful tree that blossomed big white flowers. But the difference was that his tree also blossomed gumdrops. 

 

Now, this was really the biggest mystery to my brother and me growing up. All we knew was that one random morning each spring, we would wake up and look outside our bedroom windows and there they'd be. These hundreds of different gumdrops of rainbow colors strewn about my brother's tree, and covered in sugar and ready to be harvested before breakfast. Now, of course, I was more than welcome to engage in the harvest, and I did it every year. But when I really started to think about this discrepancy, I couldn't help but become a little bit unhinged. [audience laughter] Why was my tree a normal tree and his tree was this super special gumdrop tree? Was I being ungrateful, or were things in my life really this vastly unequal? Was I adopted? [audience laughter] 

 

So, this one night in early spring, pre-harvest, my brother and I were playing a game of hide and seek. I headed to the best hiding spot in the house, which was underneath my parents’ bed. I'm not kidding when I tell you that this is the best hiding spot in the entire house, because it was taking him quite some time to find me. I start to poke around, see if there's anything interesting I can find to help pass the time. When out of the corner of my eye, I see this big white storage bin with the lid popping off. I take this box out from underneath the bed, and I take the lid off and what did I see, but dozens and dozens of bags of rainbow-colored gumdrops and huge spools of green floss. I had single-handedly uncovered the greatest mystery of my generation. [audience laughter] 

 

So, here I was at this crossroads. I could either put the lid back on the box and put the box back under the bed, not say anything and let the mystery of the gumdrop tree live on for my brother forever, or I could be a big asshole about it. [audience laughter] So, I run out to the hallway and I yell my brother's name, and he comes running back into my parents’ bedroom where he is swiftly confronted with this big box that single-handedly destroys all of our childhood hopes and dreams. [audience laughter]

 

He takes one look at the box and he starts to cry. I take one look at him and say, “Who's special now?” [audience laughter] He takes one look at me, still with tears in his eyes and says, “Annie, I've known that mom and dad do the gumdrop tree for a really long time. [audience laughter] But I'm sad because I wanted the magic to live on for you.” [audience laughter] 

 

So, I don't quite remember what happened for the rest of that night. But what I do remember, is that for several years after my family and I would spend one night together late spring, sitting around the kitchen table stringing rainbow-colored gumdrops onto spring of green floss in preparation for tomorrow's harvest. So, what I learned is that regardless of whatever grows on your trees or in your gardens, sometimes there's nothing sweeter than your roots. Thank you.