Every other day

While waking up from a nap, I -- for no apparent reason -- remembered something that happened when I was around eight or ten.

Our next-door neighbors, the Pumpkins [not their name, but it’s amusing if you’re from my family] went on vacation for a week or two. The mom, Mrs. Pumpkin, hired me to once a day feed and water their pet rabbit, which lived in a hutch in the back yard.

I did this diligently, every day – although some days, I admit, I forgot until after dark: then I had to use a flashlight. But still, I did it.

When they got home, Mrs. Pumpkin stopped by to pay me. She asked whether I had fed the rabbit every day, or “more like every-other day”. For some reason, she put some emphasis on the “more like every-other day”. I was an agreeable little kid (and didn’t know what “every-other day” meant -- I thought it was just an odd way of saying “each day”, because every day is an “other day”, depending on the day), so I echoed back “every-other day”. Then she said something slightly snippy about “Well, since you only did it every-other day...”, paid me half of what she owed me, and left.

I remember being confused, annoyed, and insulted, because I wasn’t getting paid what I was worth, and I had kept my end of the bargain. But I didn’t challenge it, since I was a little kid (and she was a grown-up), and since I sensed that by choosing the alternate phrasing of “every day” that I somehow had given an impression of not doing it every day.

A year or two later, I learned what “every-other day” meant, and I went, “Ahhhh…”


It’s funny what you remember.

And I never use the phrase “every-other day”.


--GG