The youngest, Michelle, is a senior in high school. She has been doing some major essay writing recently. The one below made me laugh. Maybe the apple didn’t fall far from the tree!

This is the prompt from the university:

Beyond your impressive academic credentials and extracurricular accomplishments, what else makes you unique and colorful? We know nobody fits neatly into 500 words or less, but you can provide us with some suggestion of the type of person you are. Anything goes! Inspire us, impress us, or just make us laugh. Think of this optional opportunity as show and tell by proxy and with an attitude.

This is the essay:

       I like to think of myself as the funny sibling in my family. I am the youngest of three girls, and as the youngest I have made it my duty to keep family dinner conversations, holidays, and hangouts exciting. You can always find me carrying a speaker around the house blasting music or convincing my sisters to play my favorite game, the No-Smiling-Game. The rules of the No-Smiling-Game are simple: the players try to make each other laugh while also simultaneously trying not to laugh in the process. No matter how annoying my sisters say the game is, they always give into playing because they know it is a guaranteed laugh. However, most recently I’ve found a new way to entertain my family and me: word mashing. 

            One may ask herself, What in the world is word mashing? Like the No- Smiling-Game, it is just as it sounds, taking two words and mashing them together. I’m not really sure where my word mashing, or as I like to call it “washing”, habits started. I think it was sometime during quarantine when I was extremely bored. I got my sisters in on the joke early on because I was constantly combining words around the house. However, my extended family wasn’t exposed to it until our annual summer vacation to the mountains of West Virginia. 

            The first word mash of the week was random, but in my personal opinion, the best of them all. My grandpa was telling a story about his very close encounter with a bear and mentioned bear territory. So naturally, I created “bearitory.” The beauty of word mashing to me is the accomplishment felt when finding a really good match.  After announcing a new word mash to the family and explaining exactly what word mashing was, everyone got in on the fun. 

One night at dinner my family and I were on a mashing roll. It all started when our waitress announced we were having spaghetti for dinner. The spaghetti noodles and spaghetti sauce came to the table thus “spoodles” and “spauce” were born. My uncle, Jesse, catching onto the trend, added that we were also having a “vedley” for dinner as an alternate way of saying vegetable medley. My 75-year-old grandma even joined in when she was inspired by the toppings on her salad: “Oh! I’ve got one,” she said tentatively, worried her word mash might not meet the high expectations of the experts at the table. She proceeded with caution, “Blumbles? Like blue cheese crumbles?” The entire table busted out into laughter. That night we came up with quite the list of “washes.”           

Throughout the week the list grew. Each day brought dozens of new and brilliant mashes to add to the collection. We even created a sort of point system for our new game. For example, the more obscure the word mash the more points earned. Additionally, if the word mash included two large words put together or if it consisted of two innocent words that sounded inappropriate, such as dill pickles (I’ll leave it at that), there was extra credit.

Once we left West Virginia, it was hard to return to a world where word mashing wasn’t commonly used by those around us. However, I’m not sure I would want everyone in on the fun. I sort of like the uniqueness of our family. Little things like “washing” or the No-Smiling-Game often bring the most laughter and create the best memories for me.