It was cruel any way you look at it.

The adults sat around the table having coffee cups and cake pieces (as Grandpa used to say). I was one to hang around, you never knew what you’d learn. Not to worry, they’d revert to speaking Finn if the subject was not for children.

Probably in an effort to get rid of me, someone had the clever idea to offer me some viilia. “Ice cream,” they lied. Clueless, I was thrilled. From the cupboard they took out a bowl of white creamy stuff and spooned some into a dish.

All eyes were on me, everyone smiling with anticipation. A trusting kid (not after that day, though), I took a spoonful. It was awful. Viilia, it turned out, was a Finnish type of yogurt Grandma always made.

That was bad, but nothing compared to the evening I was on break at my carhop job at Paul Pearson’s Drive In. I got called away to do something and came back to the break table, picked up my Coke and took a big sip through the straw — gagged, choked and snorted. My now hysterical older co-workers had filled the straw with ketchup.

And like the adults who fed an innocent little girl viilia, oh, how they laughed! And oh how humiliated I was.

Beware that you do not despise or feel scornful toward or think little of one of these little ones, for I tell you that in heaven their angels are always in the presence of and look upon the face of My Father Who is in heaven. Matthew 18:10