Thursday Thirteen #2

Thirteen Things about my childhood (that didn't seem as odd then as they do now) 1. In grade school, our playground was a parking lot surrounded by a rusty fence. We used to play "In the Furnace," in which a player would be captured and squeezed against the fence. Kind of like "Squeeze the Lemon," only way more macabre. 2. When I was younger, my secret career dreams included being a backup singer (you don't have the pressure of being the headliner) or a trucker (I really wanted a CB handle). 3. In order to pass swimming lessons at the community pool, you had to jump from the diving board into the 12 ft. end. and swim to the swim instructors. I made my instructors tread water for 20 minutes while I stood on the board thinking about jumping. They were not pleased, but I still passed. 4. When my younger brother was born, I pretended I was deaf. I'm not kidding. Instead of throwing a tantrum like most kids, I pretended that I couldn't hear. I got all the way to Hershey Medical Center before they found me out, and I'll never know how my parents remained so cool about the whole thing. 5. While doing my household chores, I used to pass the time by pretending that the house was a bed breakfast and I was the housekeeper. Sometimes I still do that to this day. 6. I went through a brief kleptomania phase in second grade, only my conscience would get the better of me and I would always get caught trying to put the stuff back a few minutes after I took it. Stealing erasers from my second grade teacher's desk was my last act of petty larceny. God bless Sister Helene Joseph wherever she is -- thanks to her gentleness I have never taken another thing that didn't belong to me. 7. I did, however, turn to forgery. In fifth grade I got such a low grade on a math test that I didn't want to show my parents, so I signed my dad's name. My fatal mistake was using eraseable pen and then signing it multiple times until it looked "right." My conscience really got the better of me then, because I confessed to my dad before the teacher even called me on it. After that, my life of crime was over -- my nerves couldn't handle it. 8. The only time I got detention in high school was for "forgetting" my gym clothes four weeks in a row. I "forgot" them because my gym teacher was a sadist who called everyone by their last names, which she made them WRITE on the fronts of their gym shirts with permanent markers. 9. In grade school, I knew a kid named Mark who liked to pretend he was Rainbow Brite. He was transferred to a school in New York, and ended up in the same class as my future sister-in-law, Marguerite. We discovered this years later after we met in college. 10. My mom made me call my grandmother when I got my first period. There is no way in hell I am making my girls do that. I'll just call my mom when they go to school and tell her myself. 11. I used to run home from school in time to watch Voltron. Activate interlock, dynotherms connected, megathrusters GO! . . . Is it weird that I had crushes on cartoons? 12. I thought that everybody's family served ravioli as well as turkey on Thanksgiving. Then I met people whose families didn't eat ravioli at all ! 13. In high school, I thought that if I worked at an ice cream parlor it might cure me of my immoderate love of ice cream -- like immersion therapy or something. It didn't work. The only thing I learned was that scooping ice cream all summer gives you carpal tunnel. Oh, and nobody ever picked rum raisin. Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. Dayngr 2. Caylynn 3. Amy 4. Debbie 5. Chupieandj'smama (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

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