I couldn’t have been more than six or seven. Walt Disney’s marketing already had a firm grasp on my heart, and my Lady and the Tramp coloring book was my very favorite coloring book, ever ever ever in the whole wide world, Amen.
That afternoon I spent hours – well, what seemed like hours to my six-or-seven-year-old-mind, anyway – coloring a single page. I carefully colored each dog a different color, utilizing my favorite shades – one violet-red, one purple, one blue…taking my time, concentrating on staying in the lines. I meticulously outlined each one in black crayon, a coloring technique I had learned from a friend and adopted as my own; I loved the way the black outlines made the colors seem more vivid.
I slowly – careful, now! – tore the page from the coloring book and presented my masterpiece to my mother. Beaming with pride, I waited breathlessly for the praise that was sure to come.
“Now, [LadyBug], you KNOW that dogs aren’t really purple and blue and pink, so why would you color them that way?”
Lesson Learned: No matter how hard I tried, no matter how diligently I worked, nothing I could do would ever be good enough for my mother.
Posted by LadyBug 
