So That’s what it is?

"Now, honey, don't slip on the snow!" I hear my mother speak and understand for the first time. "Hold my hand tight, and don't slip on the snow!" Her voice is tinged with the constant worry of a mother over her first child. She grasps my hand firmly and guides me down the staircase leading down to the first story of the apartment building. As I get half-way down, I realize it is the white, crusty-hard stuff she is speaking about. For all its iciness, my mother decided to dress me in a horribly scratchy woolen dress and black patent-leather shoes; the only thing she didn't put on me were tights. I look down at the snow and the realization hits me like a freight train:

"So, THAT'S what's blowing up my dress freezing my butt off?" I have hated snow ever since.

(This is my true first conscious thought.)