I was thinking today how weird the logic of a child is. Actually, my logic is weird anyway, but children are so outspoken and impulsive. I kind of wish I still had those characteristics.
You know that song that goes "nananana, nananana, hey hey goodbye"
When I was around 5 I thought that was the "aids anthem" I think it was in a public service commercial about aids, and I would kiss the neighbor girl next door and I thought kissing gave you aids.
I called up an aids hotline I saw advertised and asked the operator about when I was going to die. Whenever that song would come on I'd tear up. I'm not sure how or when I figured out I didn't have aids.
Theres also the classic story of how I covered my entire head with a whole jar of vaseline, and it was layered on so thick I had to have my hair cut short enough that I was nearly bald. When my mom asked why I did that, I said it was because "I wanted to look like the kool-aid man"
I collected rocks and kept them around my ankle because I said they had souls and would talk to me.
So please, tell me all the weird things you did as a wee one?
meredith [email] said at 11:40 PM 04-11-2005: Oh Reggie you reminded me! I thought there were skeletons behind my door and a monster under my bed, so if I had to get up to pee, I would throw back the covers and SPRINT to the bathroom to avoid the skeletons (after much contemplation and preparation) and when coming back I would leap from as FAR from the bed as possible to get back into it to avoid the monster under it grabbing my feet.
angie [email] said at 11:44 PM 04-11-2005: my next door neighbor had a weird stuffing things in her nose problem. she'd stick TONS of stuff up their and always had to go to the ER
meredith [email] said at 11:47 PM 04-11-2005: I think a lot of kids thought that it would roll out the other side. I never really cared about my nose. Although it was allegedly my first word.
reggie [email] said at 2:45 AM 04-12-2005: *I used to have an imaginary pet lion named "Major."
*I used to use my GI Joe figures as wrestlers. I mean I had championships, pay-per-views and everything (to this day I contend that this really helped build my storytellng abilities."
meredith [email] said at 11:00 AM 04-12-2005: The lion is good. I never had a lion.
I used to make up eleborate storylines using Care Bears and Breyer horses. Goodluck Bear owned a stable you see. Funshine helped out. The horses always talked in british accents for some reason though. I know this because I found a tape that my sister and I made concerning some of the horses being held hostage by Lassie (see the papoos story).
meredith [email] said at 11:38 PM 04-11-2005: Ha! That's so funny! Well, everyone already knows that I played with coat hangers and pretended they were deer since it's a Killoggs quote...
My sister and I used to beg our mom to make us into Woody Woodpecker in the bathtub, which meant she would soap our hair into a kind of Woody pompador and we would try to describe to the other one how awesome our Woody hair looked and then try and laugh like Woody Woodpecker and each think we did the laugh the best.
I used to put our long-suffering cat Lassie into my backpack with her head sticking out and said I was an Indian and she was in her papoos (sp?).
Whenever my mom told me I was having a tantrum, I always pictured an unwrapped Hershey's Kiss sitting in the pantry by itself. My sister however would think that was her cue to throw herself on the floor and start screaming and banging her fists and feet into the ground. Seriously, she thought she was supposed to do that if someone told her she was having a tantrum.
I got a hold of a typewriter when I was like... three or something way before I could read or write. I think I just knew my letters barely. It was one of those really old ones that came in a suitcase, and I used to try and write my parents letters by asking them how to spell only parts of words (like if I wanted to spell cage, I would say 'How do you spell kay?' then after I had typed whatever they responded 'how do you spell juh?') and then bring them the finished product. So it would look like, "hehlow eyemm an amminnal pluheess donut puta muhee inna kayjuh."
jeff [email] said at 1:46 AM 04-12-2005: When I was looking at family photos that one time, I got to see some of you as a little girl in the bathtub. You were so widdle and kwoot. haha..sucker.
shauna [email] said at 12:27 PM 04-12-2005: i would have these tantrums where i just wouldn't move. apparently i would wail and wail "i can't move my arms! i don't have any! i'm a baby sea worm!" whatever that is. looking back i think those were my first panic attacks.
angie [email] said at 11:43 PM 04-11-2005: I used to put our long-suffering cat Lassie into my backpack with her head sticking out and said I was an Indian and she was in her papoos (sp?).
that actually made me "lol"
I had a dream when I was 8 that I tried sneaking my cat into school by wearing him as a hat, and when I awoke I tried doing it but it wouldnt work he just scratched my face.
also, the typewriter thing was really cute. My grandfather taught guitar lessons and I remember I would try and spell and make notes for his students and then when my grandfather wasnt looking id run across the room holding the poorly written sign up.
shauna [email] said at 12:24 PM 04-12-2005: i did that to my cat, marmalade (may her kitty sould rest in peace). i'd take her everywhere, often with her little orange head sticking out of my stonewashed denim backpack. we went hiking, biking, sledding (um, i swear she liked it). she did not like the swings. i know bc she brafed in my backpack. did i mention i didn't have friends or siblings?
i went to 12 years o' catholic school, and my grandma was scary religious, also with a touch of the mental illness. to the point where she'd tell me she could see jesus watching me, that angels were watching me and could see anything bad i did.
so i kinda flipped out when i was about 9 and digging a hole in the ground somewhere for some reason and dug up a tiny jesus. i thought god had sent me sign, that i was chosen. i told my parents this, and that i had to become a nun.
it turns out that when your jesus falls off your rosary or crucifix or whatever, you are supposed to bury it. (so there's lots of jesuses out there right now, folks). nobody chose me fer nothin.
i was still really into becoming a nun for a long time. until i realized you could never have sex.
Bob [ url ] said at 1:53 PM 04-13-2005: When I was a squirt I decided I'd test the old adage about cats always landing on their feet, so I picked up the cat and tried to drop her upside down, but she landed too fast for me to see anything.
So I went up to the second floor and dropped her out the window.
linus [email] said at 12:35 AM 04-12-2005: I once barricaded my babysitter grandmother out of my room, Scooby-doo-being-chased-by-a-ghost style. You wouldn't think a 6 year old's furniture would stack that high. But then again it was only a trailer. No cartoons for a whole Saturday. Worst punishment ever.
I carried a Yoda action figure in my pocket and talked to it for at least a couple years.
kate [email] said at 12:56 AM 04-12-2005: i would write notes to the tooth fairy telling her that i would really appreciate it if i could have the ability to change into any animal that i wanted to or fly. then when i left the note by my bed once i causally mentioned it to mom. i didn't realize she was "the fairy." she said, "well, maybe that's a lot to ask of the tooth fairy." i was like, "mom, no, what are you saying? this is between me and the toothfairy." and regretted telling her. what did she know anyway. she was so realistic and did not understand my desire to really be a tiger on command. it would make playtime at the nursery a blast, man. let's just say that i eventually realized that the note never left my bedside even though my teeth always did. they actually were never coordinated. and i found out one day that she wasn't real, and felt bad for my mom having to try to convince me to not bother the tooth fairy, even though i was young. but i still got to climb a lot of trees.
kate [email] said at 1:17 AM 04-12-2005: oh yeah, one more...
once i had this friend missy and i don't know why, but i just had this impulse to really just blow her away. i think i had recently seen Mac and Me. I basically pulled her over to a quiet corner of the playground and said, "Missy, can you keep a secret? I mean, really keep a secret?" Her face got serious, and she said, "Yeah, what is it?" I exhaled with all sincerity and looked both ways to make sure no one was listening. "Well" I said, "I'm an alien." She was like, "okay." "yes, it's true, I'm not really human even though I seem to be." I have no idea what story I fed her, but something to the effect of landing on the planet earth and my family also not being human and it being a huge secret and this not being my real body. I probably told her the truth soon afterwards, but man, I must have been good because she really wanted to believe I was an alien. Why weren't we just talking about The Babysitter's Club? I don't know.
jeff [email] said at 1:53 AM 04-12-2005: Your tooth fairy story inspired me to e-mail my mother just now. Here's what I had to say:
--
To: Mom
Cc:
Bcc:
Subject: Teeth
Reply-To:
Remember that time I had lost a couple teeth and I put them under
the pillow for the tooth fairy and you tripped over my tinker-toy
grasscutter and broke it? I think I somehow slept through it, but I can't remember if you actually got money under the pillow or that was another time that the tooth fairy FAILED TO DELIVER!
meredith [email] said at 10:50 AM 04-12-2005: Kate I used to wish this too, except I wished it on rocks that I would throw into the Gulf. Just about every weekend of my childhood, I would find a couple of 'very special' rocks and wish VERY HARD on each of them that I would be able to change into any animal and any color and also be able to fly.
amanda [email] said at 1:40 AM 04-12-2005: -I thought that the Twiddlebugs lived in a magical land accessible to me only through the powers of a red, faux ruby heart pendant that I got out of a coin machine at Fleet Farm, and a special vortex found in the center of my sandbox.
-I used to compose elaborate, soap operatic plots wherein the characters were all played by marbles and all disputes among the marbles were solved through marble-sport.
-My mom wouldn't allow me to have a Ken doll, so I butched-out Malibu Barbie instead. I believe that I even attempted to sand off her boobs.
-My best friend Jesse and I met at a beer party when we were 3, and became obsessed with Nerds candy when we were approximately 7 and started publishing a Nerds Newspaper which we sold at lemonade stand-esque establishments and yard sales.
-I used to believed that I would grow up to marry a duck.
amanda [email] said at 1:53 AM 04-12-2005: Oh! And the pinnacle of childhood oddities for me? I used to dress up as Audrey Horne when I was in 5th grade. Like, almost EVERYDAY. Beauty mark and all.
meredith [email] said at 10:28 AM 04-12-2005: Oh man. That reminds me. Apparently when I was in Kindergarten I told everyone I was Mickey Mouse and refused to answer anyone unless the called me Mickey. The school had to call my parents and they had to have a talk with me about being Meredith at school and Mickey at home.
cecil [email] said at 3:18 PM 04-12-2005: In the 3rd grade I seriously had rainbow suspenders that I put buttons on. Most of the buttons were Peanuts characters. There was one of Snoopy dressed in a tuxedo and it said "Suave". My teacher told me to look up the word "vain" and I was so embarrassed.
kate [email] said at 10:48 AM 04-12-2005: I was such a goodie goodie because my little brother said he was going to be a Transformer when he grew up and I insisted on telling him each time, "NO you can't that is impossible!!" while others were like, "Kate, chill, it's not like he is going to, let him be a kid." a transformer, i'm sure, more like a pot head drummer.
angie [email] said at 12:15 PM 04-12-2005: amanda, you actually drew those when you were little? they're amazing. the POULTRYGEIST?! I wish I were that clever as a little girl.
also, i used to have to fill out those same book report things all the time. I'd make my mom do it, and it was usually a book I never read, but a movie based off a book.
shauna [email] said at 12:31 PM 04-12-2005: my cousins and i had a newspaper, but the best thing we did was record our own "greaseman" show all the time. four girls under 12 making penis jokes that we didn't even get. and would go "humuna humuna haaa!" like he did.
nathan [email] said at 10:31 AM 04-12-2005: We used to play weird games in 1st grade - catch bees and stand in a line at the stapler and put staples in our thumbs.
meredith [email] said at 10:44 AM 04-12-2005: You were that kid who pulled out all his eyelashes put them in to paste and ate it just to make the glue eater look bad weren't you?
nathan [email] said at 12:57 PM 04-12-2005: No, I didn't do gross-out stuff. I just did weird pre-jackass boyhood rituals, like stapling thumbs in a line, or jumping off a roof in a line across a scary gap into a pool until someone broke their leg.
shauna [email] said at 12:32 PM 04-12-2005: ooh! and you could smear lightning bugs on your face and the guts would glow and we'd play lord of the flies, which amounted to beating each other up in the woods.
amanda [email] said at 6:48 PM 04-12-2005: Dude! My cousin Brenda and I used to have fencing matches with metal batons and wind up missing and beating each other senseless. That was the same cousin who once smacked me in the square skull with a miniature golf club when she was sort of mindlessly slinging it over her shoulder.
We also used to like to freak my grandma out when we were at her cottage on Kelly Lake. Our grandma couldn't swim and was afraid of drowning, so we'd tip our inflatable raft over and hide underneath it until she noticed and came running out to the edge of the dock screaming.
julie [email] said at 11:14 AM 04-12-2005: I don't know too many "cute" stories about stuff I did as a kid. I know plenty of stories about my younger siblings' childhood eccentricities, though! Maybe to find out more of mine, I'd have to ask my older sister. (And THAT ain't gonna happen.)
I remember I did some minor OCD-type stuff, such as whispering/thinking "I'm sorry" one hundred times if I ever took the lord's name in vain at school, when I was like 7 or 8. Also, they said in church that the ONLY thing that would keep you from going to heaven was if you said "I don't believe in the Holy Spirit." That was like, the only unforgivable, instant-damnation sin. So of course, I thought the words "I don't believe in the Holy Spirit" just about every day for years, but only because I was trying to hard NOT to. I was terrified! Every time I thought that sentence, I pictured myself in hell.
Hm, this is actually more sad than funny.
Oh, here's a quirky thing. I used to think that one day, I'd grow up to be older than my older sister. I suspect this came from one time when my parents or someone told me that I'd probably be taller than her some day. (We're built differently, and yes, I am taller than she is now.) But somehow in my kid mind, this morphed into the very satisfying, pleasant conviction that she wouldn't be older than me forever! That someday, *I* could boss *her* around!!! Just you wait! This knowledge carried me through many tough times. Unfortunately for me, I voiced this conviction in the presence of my family once and was roundly humiliated.
One fun thing to tease little boys about is to ask them who they want to marry when they grow up. I think 99% say "My mom." Then, you just say, "But what about your dad? He's already married to your mom!" and they just wrinkle up their faces and go CRAZY trying to figure that one out. Sometimes they cry, if you chant "You can't marry mo-omm, you can't marry mo-omm" in a sing-song voice. It's great fun.
shauna [email] said at 1:11 PM 04-12-2005: ah, scary church. i remember when we were preparing for our first holy confession we had to write down all of our sins on a piece of paper so we wouldn't forget any when we went into the confessional. all these little kids with a list of everything they've ever felt bad about. what a weird thing to do.
then we'd compete to see who had to pray the longest. that indicated that you were sexually advanced for some reason. church and puberty...
jess [email] said at 2:38 PM 04-12-2005: I told this story to Josh a couple of days ago.
Apparently I was a pretty precocious child. I don't remember this, but my mom LOVES this story.
We were eating at a Chinese restaurant. I was 4 or 5 years old. A kid about my age was throwing a temper tantrum at an adjacent table, and I was eating quietly. Without consulting my parents, I got up, marched over to the table with the yowling child, tugged on the mother's jacket, and said imperiously:
"HE ISN'T VERY WELL BEHAVED, IS HE."
Apparently she was so embarrassed that she rushed out of the restaurant, squirming kid in her arms. My parents were also kind of embarrassed but thought it was totally hilarious first and foremost.
Also, in kindergarten, I was building a block tower and it fell down and I yelled "OH, SHIT!" because, well, that's what Dad does when things fall down, and I got hauled into the principal's office and berated and they called my mom, who burst out laughing and told them that it was adorable and that they should let me go back to class.
julie [email] said at 2:43 PM 04-12-2005: Ooh, I remembered another one. I was 3 or 4, at the funeral of my great-uncle. Natural causes. Open casket. I stood on tiptoe and tried to reach into the casket to push aside his necktie, because I wanted to see the hole. You know, the BULLET HOLE. Because cartoons taught me that people only ever died by being shot in the chest. (???!!!) Apparently I also asked in a very loud, plaintive voice, where the bullet hole was. Parents: mortified.
cecil [email] said at 3:41 PM 04-12-2005: I became sexually aroused from watching a Porky Pig cartoon.
I had a huge poster of a lion that I thought was Aslan from Narnia and he protected me.
I was about 8 when Steve Martin's Wild and Crazy Guy standup album came out. I listened to it over and over and performed sections of it for my family, often they were dirty jokes and I had no idea, but they laughed hysterically.
Once in kindergarten a kid brought a hotwheels car in for show and tell. Later on I stole it and helped the whole class look all over for the lost toy.
After I saw E.T. I decided that Drew Barrymore was my girlfriend. I waited in a long line for a pre-autographed picture of her in a department store, she handed it to me. I told kids at school that I had a girlfriend for that summer but she lived in Hollywood. But I was 12 so this story is just creepy and not cute at all.
