A Tuna Bedtime Story

When I was two-years-old I began sleeping with a can of tuna.  Chicken of the Sea, to be exact.  I had become obsessed with mermaids after watching Charo on an early 1970s variety show, dressed up as a mermaid.  She had an abundance of curly golden hair and dark skin.  I was pale, small for my age, with brown hair and eyes.  I thought Charo was beautiful and I wanted to look just like her. 

My obsession with mermaids happened in the early 1970s, well before Disney's blockbuster movie The Little Mermaid.  There wasn't the easy access to mermaid dolls, videos, posters and music that there is today.  My mother changed that by showing me the label of a can of Chicken of the Sea tuna while making me lunch one day.

The mermaid on the label was just as beautiful as Charo.  Long, blond hair, blue eyes, a fancy, shiny outfit, and fins.  I loved the mermaid on the can immediately.  I wanted her to be with me at all times, including bedtime.

To her credit, my mother never made me feel weird or bizarre for sleeping with a canned good.  But at one point she did try to convince me that maybe we could take the label off.  I thought she was offering me just the can of tuna without the label, instead of trying to get me to sleep with just the label at night, which was what she was trying to do.  I turned her down.

I don't know exactly when my obsession with mermaids ended.  But it did end, and abruptly.  After a few months of snuggling next to a can of solid white albacore packed in water, I was on to something else--The Bionic Woman.  She had blond hair and blue eyes, too, but was much more active and accessible than a mermaid.  She could run really fast and listen in on other people's conversations just by brushing her long yellow hair away from her bionic ear.  Lindsay Wagner became my new idol.  This was long before her Sleep Number Mattress days.

I remember handing my mother the can of tuna that had had a very special place in my bed for what seemed like too long a chunk of my young life.  I remember her being very proud of me.  She smiled and laughed and hugged me, something she didn't do enough of as far as I was concerned, and so any doubts I may have had about losing my tuna can disappeared. 

Looking back, my mom was probably more relieved than proud.  She made us tuna salad sandwiches that day for lunch.  I'm sure as she mixed the mayonnaise and sweet pickle relish in with the chunks of tuna, she said a silent prayer of thanks that she wouldn't have to find a child therapist for me and my unnatural seafood attachment.

My husband and I have just started trying to have a baby.  I hope I keep this story in mind if my kid does something really weird, maybe even embarrassing.  I hope I remember that kids do strange things sometimes that aren't a reflection of bad parenting or trauma or evil corporate marketing.  Sometimes they may sleep with a can of tuna, and it just means they want to be a mermaid.