I guess some of my childhood experiences were somewhat unique. So, I offer you, The Top 5 Ways My Childhood Was Cooler than Yours.
5) Many of my most vivid memories are associated with the television shows I watched as a child. Many afternoons were spent praying for Stick Stickley to pick ''Are you Afraid of the Dark" instead of "Ahhhh Real Monsters!" I would be lying if I said the television didn't raise me at least a little bit. But this isn't to say my mother was being negligent or lazy. Quite the contrary, she had a very influential role in deciding what I watched. Did you ever watch ''The Sand Fairy"?
Because I did. About 1,000 times, as a conservative estimate. A quick glance at this creature might make you question the term fairy-- perhaps gremlin or goblin would be more appropriate? But nevertheless, he would emerge from a sandy beach and grant wishes to greedy British children with great regularity in the Basham household. I recently found clips of the program online and the memories came flooding back to me.
We were also regular viewers of the equally obscure shows, The Torkelsons and Today's Special. I am pretty sure that there was a cross in the television wires and somehow we were the only people to ever see Today's Special. Either that, or Mommy Dearest was the writer, director and producer and filmed it in the garage when we weren't looking, because no one has ever seen this show. With a quick glance at the YouTube video, it is probably with good reason.
4) The sandbox can be a magical place. You can make castles, moats-- entire worlds that will transport you from that war zone known as kindergarten. My father was kind enough to make a sandbox for my brothers and I to play in, but there was one small oversight.
He did not fill it with sand. He filled it with gravel. And by using the word "gravel," I am being kind. Mostly it was just rocks, which are less expensive than sand but much more painful to sit in. And castles? Forget it. My brothers and I would spend hours dragging buckets of water to the ''sandbox" in order to saturate the gravel enough to make a castle. Sometimes this would work briefly, but the magnificent, rock-bestrewn buildings would eventually crumble. Eventually, Brother James and I stopped kidding ourselves. Consumed with concern for the future (because if we had a gravel sandbox now, life could only get worse), we began burying small amounts of coinage Tic-Tac boxes for ''rainy days." I'll begin paying back my student loans as soon as I can recover those "treasures" we left for ourselves...
3) I had an eye patch. Need I say more? I was freakishly tall, had boyishly short hair, and a flesh-colored adhesive eye patch. To add insult to injury, my extremely sensitive skin did not react well to the adhesive, which resulted in angry irritation spanning from forehead to cheek. As The Girl With the Patch, I wasn't the most popular first grader. People either asked me a lot of questions or tried to ignore my completely.
One day, accepting my situation and looking to make the best out of a bad lot, I adorned my patch with a sticker that my optometrist had given to me. These stickers were mostly of the animal variety, playful and sweet. If I could go back in time, when Dr. Gold handed me those stickers, I would have kicked him in the balls and said ''Bitch, what are you thinking?" Because, really? Even I would have made fun of me. Freak show, twelve o'clock, glittery sheep sticker over her eye patch? Is she a member of the Pirates for Free-Range Agriculture Association (PFRAA)?
2) Celine Dion. Vocal powerhouse. Possibly molested by a man who was more than 20 years her senior. Slash husband. In third grade, I received Celine Dion's ''Falling Into You" cassette tape as a gift. As the gift wrap was feverishly torn away, a lifelong Celine fan was born. Strange, I know. Most girls my aged liked Alanis, Shania, or the Spice Girls. Not me, I clung to the strangely thin Canadian songstress and memorized every word of all of her songs. And as a chubby eight-year-old? Well, I'd be damned if Celine was not singing about my life. Ballads about lost loves? Breathy little ditties laden with overtly sexual come-ons? This was my truth!
This obsession continued and intensified. In 6th grade, I instituted ''Celine Fridays."
It's okay. Are you thinking that you never would have been friends with me? It's okay. A lot of people felt that way. On Fridays, I would wear my Celine Dion shirt. I don't really know what else I did to mark these designated holidays, but I probably spouted more Celine information than usual. Such as her favorite perfume is Chanel No. 5. Or maybe that her shoe size was an 8. Or sometimes an 8 1/2. I may have been the only one celebrating, but I was dead-set on spreading the message.
1) I don't mean to paint a picture of myself as a socially isolated freak. However, if you feel that way now, this next story might confirm your suspicions. I would like to think of all of these experiences as ''character building exercises." Please have my future biographers refer to them that way.
In 7th grade, for reasons unknown, I made it my life's mission to convince my entire class that I had a pet duck. Yes, you read that correctly. A. Pet. Duck. Of the "quack quack" variety. My mother bought me a plastic lawn ornament (why, mother, why...?). He was a white duck; I named him Clive. I told people about my new pet, and said that I made him a home called Duckingham Palace. I even looked up how to do this on the INTRAWEB, so that no one could find fault with my story.
I had some buyers. I took it a step further. I took pictures of Clive in the yard, by the stream, or resting by the side of a tree. Keep in mind, these were the days before digital cameras. I went to the trouble of buying film and developing it; all for this great charade. A few keen observers noted that Clive was always photographed in very similar positions. Funny, how inanimate plastic objects are so hesitant to BREAK OUT OF THEIR SHELLS. I usually responded indignantly, with a shrill "Well what do you expect him to do?!" and then would pack away my pictures because there is no greater offense than suggesting that my beloved waterfowl was not a living breathing creature.
