Wednesday's Word

Okay, today's word is something very funny to me. I'll explain it.

Today's word is pinecone.

Actual meaning: The cone of a pine tree. (pretty obvious, huh)

Meaning to me: The connection between my cousins and I that will make us best friends for a lifetime

Okay, well, the "Pinecone Connection" began about 10 years ago. It hardly seems possible that so many years have passed, but I guess that's about right. I went on vacation with my cousin's Tracy and Will and their parents and our other cousin Scott. We had always gotten along pretty well, Tracy and Will's parents figured we would be safe people to take on the trip.
I should also say that we all like to joke around. A LOT. So we picked on each other the entire way down there, and then we unpacked, had dinner, had a bit of fun, then it was time for bed. Or so Tracy and I thought. We were just about asleep when our door opened, and Scott and Will burst in throwing pinecones at us. That's right, pinecones. See, the condo had this huge basket of pinecones.
Well, pretty soon the war was over, and Scott and Will went back to bed. Tracy and I immediately started to plan our retaliation. Unfortunately we had no convenient weapons like a basket of pinecones in our room, so we made a plot to steal the pinecones to at least hide them so we could protect ourselves in our sleep. (We tried to lock the door, but it was weird and Scott and Will could still get it open.)
So we came up with a plot. I was going to go in the living room where Scott and Will were on the couch bed. Our plan was for me to tell Scott and Will that Tracy and I had a fight. I was going to say, "Tracy slapped me, and I'm not sleeping in there with her."
Amazingly Scott and Will believed me. (To be honest this made me a bit more afraid to sleep in the room with Tracy, but she never did slap me, so I guess they were just dumb boys!)
So I went in the living room armed with a pillow and blanket, and I laid down on the floor. Strategically beside the table with the pinecones of course. Scott and Will eventually went to sleep, and I grabbed the pinecones and ran. (Other stuff happened between there, but this story could really get long, so suffice it to say we got the pinecones!) And you know what, they never suspected us the whole week. The pinecones sat in our windowsill (it was one of those high arch type windows), and Scott and Will said something about the maintenance guy stealing the pinecones. We put the pinecones back at the end of the week right before we walked out the door to leave. Scott and Will had a good laugh and gave us credit for being good at stealing pinecones. So since then we have been the "Pinecone Connection" and it has been us four and no more.
There have been lots of trips since that one, and lots of scheming went into them all. I think Tracy and I are currently ahead because on the last trip Will fell down the stairs. We didn't plot for that, but still he did the dumbest thing of the week, so Tracy and I are up on them! We need to plan another trip, and Tracy and I need to work on scheming!!
Hope you enjoyed my explanation of pinecones! It's one of my fondest memories!!