Mistletoe

Chuck Stead, our beloved camp storyteller, tells a story of mistletoe missed connections and suprises…

We three kids (Cindy Maloney, Ricky Cramshaw, and myself) sat at the Soda Fountain counter, watching folks come in off the street. Just to the right of the door, a small branch of mistletoe, with its dark green leaves and translucent white berries, hung from the ceiling. We watched to see if anyone kissed under it. My uncle Mal told us that when you stood beneath the mistletoe, the next person to come along was obliged to kiss you. So far, no one stood beneath it. The girl behind the counter was new; we’d never seen her before. She brought us three mugs of hot cocoa and a little plate with three marshmallows on it. We stared at the plate and figured she’d never served cocoa before. She saw us staring at the plate of marshmallows and she said, “They’re marshmallows.”

Ricky said, “Yup, we know that.”
“They’re for your cocoa.”
“Yup, we know that too.”
She said, “Don’t you like marshmallows?”
I said, “Yeah, we like them in our cocoa.”
Ricky said, “But they look silly on a plate.”
Cindy took one of them and dropped it into her mug of cocoa. She said, “We never got them on a plate before.”
The girl said, “Oh. Well, I am new here. My name is Trudy.”
We told her our names and Ricky said, “Trudy, did you hang the mistletoe?”
She said she had hung it.
He said, “Well, it ain’t working. No one goes under it and no kissing happens.”

When he said the word ‘kissing’, he spread it out and made it sound like “Keeeeeey-sing”. Trudy smiled, and I saw that she had dimples in both of her cheeks.

She said, “Well, should we hang it someplace else?”

We all looked around at different places. I thought it could go over the entrance, but that could be a problem for people getting in and out, while kissing-people stood in their way. Ricky suggested over the bathroom door, but then we agreed that it might be smelly there. Cindy suggested a place in front of the juke-box. Trudy went over and got a short step-ladder, took down the mistletoe from where it was, and hung it over the top of the juke box. She put it just a bit in front of the jukebox so folks could get caught standing beneath it. She put the little step ladder away and went down the counter to take a man’s order. We kids took our mugs of cocoa and sat in a booth near the juke box. Still no one walked beneath it.

After a while, Cindy said, “My mom says mistletoe is poisonous.”
I said, “Yup, my mom said you need to be careful about getting kissed by the wrong person under it.”
Cindy said, “How can you tell who the wrong person is?”
“I don’t know. I guess you find out later.”
Ricky said, “Then how can you be careful?”
“I guess you just don’t go under it.”

We finished our cocoa and still no ‘persons’, wrong or right, went under the mistletoe. Finally, Trudy came back to us and said, “Any luck?” We shook our heads.

She stared up at the mistletoe and said that maybe we needed to move it again. She looked at Ricky and said, “Come on little man, help me take it down.”
Ricky slid out of the booth and Trudy brought the step ladder over to the juke-box. She then hefted Ricky up in her arms and she stepped onto the ladder. Ricky stretched his arms upward to the mistletoe overhead. Trudy looked at him and said, “Oh my, we’re under the mistletoe!” He looked at her, mortified, but it was too late, and she kissed his cheek. Cindy and I howled and laughed and shoved each other around. Trudy put Ricky down and he charged directly to the bathroom, where he scrubbed her red lipstick from his cheek. When he came out of the bathroom his face was beet red and he was sporting an over-exaggerated frown.

Trudy came to our table with three more mugs of cocoa—on the house! That made Ricky a little happier. Again, she brought us the marshmallows on a separate plate. Before she left our booth, she winked at Ricky and said, “I’ve never kissed anyone beneath the mistletoe before.”

Ricky looked up as he dropped his marshmallow into his mug and he said, “And you ain’t kissing me again!”

She smiled her double dimples and went back to the counter and there, just over his cocoa mug, I could see he had a little bit of smile going, too.