Tonight, my 3 year old nephew was checking out a drawing I made, which my mother keeps framed on a wall in the kitchen.

"C... A... T. Cat!"

"Don't look at that," I told him. "It's awful."

"Cat..."

"Your grandmother's just stubborn because it was a birthday present. I'll show you something better."

I've always hated that drawing. It didn't come out like I'd envisioned, and there wasn't time to fix it, so her refusal to take the thing down has been a constant source of embarassment for me. And here's a whole new generation drawing attention to it again. Great.

As I tried to drag the kid away, my eye fell on the date next to the signature. In a few months, it will have been hanging on that wall for nineteen years.

Ye gods!

On the one hand, I clearly need to let this go. I was eleven, and it's probably not bad by eleven-year-old standards.

On the other.. What on earth would posess a woman to keep that horrid thing in plain sight for nineteen years?!

It's not right.