About Tacos with mustard, Awana Vests, and "Unshackled"...

I am supposed to be working but I can't stop my mind from reeling with stories that I must share. Wednesday nights were always a big hit when my sisters and I were kids. I wonder if there are people in the world that have had similar experiences and could say, "us too"! I hope so. But anyway, Every Wednesday was taco night, which consisted of whole wheat tortillas, turkey taco meat, and the best part...mustard and ketchup. I swear on my life that I thought this was how everyone ate tacos until I was in middle school. I had never had tacos with salsa, cheese, and such. Our tacos always had mustard and ketchup and I must say that they were damn good. Dinner was always rushed because we were on our way to Awana, immediately following dinner. Awana is a church based club that has a twist of Girl Scouts combined with Sunday school thrown in. We wore vests that would slowly be filled with patches and jewels for our crown pins as we learned more and more Bible verses. I'm telling you that my sisters and I knew the majority of the New Testament by the time we were out of elementary school. Awana had snacks, games, and friends and was what I looked forward to most throughout the week. My memories of the car ride to the church are filled with the smell of Mom's "going away perfume", pigtails in our hair, and the sounds of the radio show, "Unshackled". This show (not sure if it's still on) was on Christian radio and was basically stories about ex convicts and drug users that came to Christ. As I look back now I wonder what I was thinking at the time based on my extremely sheltered life where drugs were a foreign idea to me. For some odd reason, the stories didn't scare me and the show became so familiar, it was comforting. The rewards of learning our verses were not only to earn decor for our vests, but also "Awana Money" which is basically the exact same thing as Monoploly money that allowed us to purchase Chuck E Cheese type crap prizes. It was super exciting at the time though! The final year of Awana was sixth grade and I can vividly remember looking forward to Wednesday nights to be able to see the boys. Although we were separated for a good portion of the evening, we would all be together during games and my friends and I would whisper and giggle about the boys we were crushing on. So basically, that is how I spent my Wednesday evenings throughout my childhood...