We all said, thought, or did stupid/weird/strange things as kids. I decided to share with you some of the crazy shit that I thought or did as a kid. I’m gonna break it down into three blogs by age. This is the second part to the triad of my life. Now that I’ve entered my school years, a healthy overactive imagination was frowned upon by most, so there won’t be so much thoughts I’ve had, but more things I did. Most of my adventures deal with my siblings, and/or my friend “J” who lived down the street and was my collaborator throughout both of our childhood. Our friendship started out with him being the one with the “ideas” that influenced me, as we got older, the roles reversed and I was the “bad” influence. Strange how things turn out.
Dares my Siblings “Made” me do
The most famous of dares, my parents still chuckle about, I was 7 or 8 I think, and my brother and sister dared me to pull down my pants and dance a little jig in front of a window facing the street and our neighbors. I don’t remember if any neighbors actually saw my cute little bare ass wiggling back and fourth, but my parents found out cause my sibs told on me….jerks. I think the fact that my parents told my grandparents and aunts and uncles as an amusing story was punishment enough. You can’t just back down from a dare! Even if it’s grossly disgusting, which leads me to another dare from the sibs that came about one sunny spring day. The dare was to pick up a dried up piece of dog poop that had been lying in our yard all winter and was now white washed from the sun, I picked it up…and again got in trouble. Some how I was missing the pattern that if I did the dares, my sibs were just setting me up to get me in trouble by promptly telling my parents what I had just done. Another dare I remember had to do with a jar of rocks in water my brother had collected from the UP on a visit to our grandparents. I don’t know why the rocks were in water, it could have been water from the lake at my grandparents house, kids collect and cherish strange things sometimes for reasons only they can justify. Now this jar had been sitting on a shelf in our garage for probably years. I was dared to open the lid and take a sip of the water, it was the grossest thing I’ve ever tasted, so horrid I couldn’t even try to explain it. Kinda earthy and sour, if you ever come across a vintage jar of “Rock Water” I really don’t recommend it, go for the Chateau Mouton-Rothschild 1945, I hear it's exquisite! Plus the hangover the next morning isn’t as painful as “Rock Water”.
Tale of the 1st Grade puddle
One day at school, there were construction workers working on the roof of my school, and you could hear them up there drilling and hammering away. I had to pee really badly, so I asked the teacher for the bathroom pass. When I got there, there was another girl at the sink washing her hands, she told me to “watch out because the construction workers drilled holes into the ceiling and they can watch us pee”. Well, I wasn’t gonna give them the opportunity to catch me with my pants down around my ankles, I was a modest kid…except for the window butt dance thing, so I chickened out, and went back to class. I tried so hard and for so long to hold it in, but small bladder plus too much juice at breakfast was my bane, eventually the floodgates opened. Nobody noticed at first, but then I heard the dreadful words utter from a boy the next seat over. “Teacher, there’s a puddle under her desk, I think she peed!” Not my best moment, but this is the only time I remember ever peeing my pants….as a kid. I tried to pass it off as spilled water; maybe it was the fact that I had asparagus for dinner the night before, or the fact that water isn’t yellow, but I couldn’t get my teacher to believe me. My teacher sent me to the nurse so they could call my mom to bring me a clean pair of pants. I remember while waiting for my mom to come and rescue me, the nurse had me stand in the bathroom with my butt waving skywards pointed towards the hot air hand dryers. Yeah…lets just say I was glad I was only in that school the one year. I’m sure I was know as “the girl who was here for one year who peed and puked in class” for the rest of those kids school career. Oh yeah, side note on that puking thing. I also puked during a music class that year, not the same day thankfully, but it was just as traumatic, with the splattering and the splash back, I kinda feel bad for the poor kids I went to school with that year.
Bike Tag
I don’t know how any of us played this without getting a broken bone somewhere, but we invented a new game, Bike Tag. It was tag on your bikes. We played on our street and had to make sharp turns weaving in and out of each other to get away from the person who was “It”. There was crashing and grabbing, and kicking, and all this at a fast paced 3-5 miles an hour! I seriously have no idea how none of us got hurt playing this.
Summer and Winter Fun with Garbage Bags
Hee hee hee, we had so much fun, and spare time, (with garbage bags) when we were kids. I know we weren’t the first, and we certainly won’t be the last, but we made a slip and slide out of garbage bags. It didn’t last long, and my mom made us throw it out as soon as she got home from work and saw what we were up to, but the four of us kids bonded as we worked together and failed to make a decent homemade slip and slide. Now in the winter, we would try to use the same theory as the slip and slide and make a sled with a garbage bag. This was definitely trial and error. The first proto type, we laid the bag down flat and laid on top trying to keep it taut as we “slid” down the hill. Yeah, easier said then done. Second wave we tried a new tactic, we wore the thin plastic bag like a potato sack and rode down the hill on our butts. Nope, that just brought about a massive wave of bruised butts from the ice laced snow. For the third time at bat, we took a big piece of cardboard, put it inside the bag, then like proto type one, we laid on top and prayed it would work. Not bad, it worked for the most part, but it just wasn’t as fast and shiny as the other kids store bought sleds, so we’d just “borrow” theirs for a while. We got to sled, and they were forced to do something nice for another, so it was a win-win for every body! :D
What in This Garage is Flammable?
My partner in crime my whole youth was a boy who lived down the street, we’ll just call him J. When we were bored and his parents weren’t home, we’d go into his garage, and pick random spray cans or car fluids containers, and see which of them were flammable, and if they made pretty colors when lit. We’d choose our favorites, then we’d make a nice pattern or design on the garage floor with them and would then light ‘em up and fun was had by all. I still can’t believe his dad never busted us, we hid our mess, not so well under the cardboard his dad placed on the garage floor to keep leaking car fluids from staining the cement floor. I’m also surprise we didn’t do any serious damage…don’t play with fire kids, not unless your supervised by a “mature” adult.
So years 7-12 has come to an end. Don’t worry, age 13-18 is coming next week. I expect you all to be waiting with baited breath!
