Monday, November 05, 2007

Seven deadlies

I knew it would come down to this: Hightouch tagged me to give out 7 interesting facts about myself. My first instinct, as with all things like this is to be obstinate and ignore the request. My second instinct is to actively mock the request. I will, however, comply, as I think it brings out several key unsavory facts about my childhood before the age of 10 that I want you all to realize right now:
  1. I faked being sick for 3 weeks in third grade so I wouldn't have to go to school and then lied about the reason why I was faking illness. I blamed my best-friend Spencer and he never forgave me for it.
  2. I once threw a fit at Christmas when the new Battleship computerized game didn't work right out of the box. All it needed were the batteries. My father was quite disgusted by my behavior.
  3. I destroyed a birdhouse I was making because I couldn't get a nail to go in without bending. I'm talking hammer flailing ultra-violence here. As I recall my friends whom I was building the birdhouses with were quite embarrassed by my behavior.
  4. I threw a rock at my older brother, [UPDATE 11/7/07] hit him in the head, [/UPDATE] and then when confronted by my crime lied about it egregiously and said it was a dirt clod.
  5. After the Dirt Clod Incident (as it is known in my family) I proceeded to spray paint my brother's name on the big old elm tree by our back door while my parents had taken him to Big V. To my thinking, my parents would never have suspected that I was the one who had done it.
  6. I nearly set the house on fire by playing with my sister's tanning lamp (this was the early 70's, after all.)
  7. I played chemist with my sister's perfume and mixed them all together. After being scolded for this by not only my parents but also my sister (which hurt more, I think) I decided to run away and live with the Box Car Children. I piled all my clothes up in the back yard and made it as far as the first fence line before I headed back to the house in shame.
So there you go. Facts. Just the facts.

Update: I tag Kendra!
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6 comments:

  1. Dr Write12:48 PM

    My favorite one is the tanning lamp. Tanning lamp? Hilarious. Also that you never suspected that your parents would know you had done the spraypainting.
    Also, that you could fake being sick for three weeks. How could it last that long?

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  2. Clint Gardner1:00 PM

    Yes a tanning lamp.

    I often try to reconstruct my child-mind to understand why I thought the tree graffiti-izing would work. I think, however, that it is mostly just wishful or magical thinking on my kid self.

    Well I was ill for a week with some strange ailments (maybe scarlet fever) but then I recovered from it but kept on playing sick. I'm not really sure why it lasted so long other than I am the youngest child and could get away with shit like that.

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  3. Lisa B.1:27 PM

    I am also impressed by the fake sickness and its duration. Once I was sick for two weeks, seriously, with a really bad case of strep throat. It was awful for awhile, and then it was just awesome. It was in high school. My return was triumphal (for me and about two other people, but hey, triumph is triumph).

    Thanks for sharing!

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  4. middlebrow6:08 PM

    This is an excellent list. I particularly like the throwing of dirt clods.

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  5. Clint Gardner7:25 PM

    Wow--I just realized an unconcious edit here: "I threw a rock at my brother, HIT HIM IN THE HEAD, and then claimed it was a dirt clod."

    I feel compelled to correct the record of this. I did, indeed hit him in the head. The goose egg on his forehead was amazing.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Clint Gardner7:26 PM

    Sweat, blood and tears, are memories just brought out by that last comment.

    ReplyDelete

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