Tramways and Gondolas

Every couple weeks I search out more and more odd things just to give the couple dedicated readers I (probably) have yet more insights into everything that was quintessential me as I was growing up. Nothing quite says "8yo Me" like the excitement of a gondola ride up a mountain, for the highlight of any trip north to the White Mountains all those Precambrian years of my life was undoubtedly the five minute ride along those waves of cables and towers. 

If I'm not mistaken, I believe Mount Canon was the one with the tramway, which was like a bus-sized lift bringing people to the summit and back, and Mount Loon had the more intimate gondolas, which I liked better. I remember the tramway actually had only one big tower post in the middle doing all the heavy lifting while the gondolas had them marching up the side like a ski lift. Mount Wildcat also had the gondolas, but that was more of a skiing destination, so we didn't ascend that one much. Ironically the biggest one of them all, Mount Washington, is a drive up, which is also the most harrowing ascent of them all for reasons those of us in the know will know! "This Car Climbed Mt. Washington" is a popular bumper sticker up here for all those who've done it and survived. But at least they give you an audio tour guide when you're driving up that is both informative and hilarious to play along the way if you should ever find your front end dangling off a ledge! "Make sure to take this opportunity to view the beautiful vista to your left..." Ahhhh!  

When riding the gondola though, I actually wasn't so much interested in the views my dad was constantly trying to get me to "stare out at." Like most boys, I was way more interested in the mechanism of the actual lift itself, its lonely outpost towers sticking up the blinding-white snow slope like advancing high-tension lines every here and there, that slight "bump-bump" I'd hear every couple minutes, and of course all the waving at the other gondolas passing on the way down. Once at the top, the excitement cooled as we'd enter that Enterprise docking bay, although coming up on it was always a contest of "who could spot it first." "Oh I see where we're going now!" I'd usually spend the whole time at the top just dreaming of the way down, and at the bottom be all like "let's go again!" 

Now all this was rather odd because I had a deathly fear of heights, but something about taking off in one of these guys was more exciting than fear-inducing, probably because I figured if they ever fell off at least the enclosure might break the impact a tad. This love of riding the lift itself (and never the actual skiing experience, for I have never skied) may seem rather trite now compared to all the grandeur going on around it, but you got to imagine what these things were to the proverbial 8yo Me. When these guys came sliding down the line into place and those futuristic doors opened, they ceased being a mere lift device and became Enterprise shuttlecrafts! You step in and it's nothing but "God help us in the hands of engineers!" and "warp speed ahead!" It was nothing but a little futuristic escapism in the great middle of nowhere. 

The Greatest Birthday Gift

Desk lamps: The birthday present
of champions!

I will not tell you when my birthday is for obvious reasons, but I have video document evidence of myself on my actual 8th birthday tossing aside clothes, games, and then virtually flying into pure elation hysterics over getting a desk lamp. This was the home movie I saw years back where I throw aside a birthday card to get to the present, only to be redirected back to the card. "You got to read the card!" "Read the card first!" 

Of course, who can forget having to be told to stop and "read the card" when you're in the middle of tearing open presents? Your eyes fixate on those words you can barely read and yet still find their way back to the new game or toy sitting on standby, waiting for you to decide when enough "card time" was enough, especially with everyone watching you "stare at it." I was all like "Are they still looking? Screw this... can I just put it down now? What's in that box?"

So once that duty was over it was on to the presents, apparently I had my heart set on a desk lamp that year for some reason because my eyes just blew open wide with amazement at this ordinary white desk lamp and I just couldn't stop talking about it. Even long after, I can be seen very visibly sneaking peaks at this desk lamp. Now if that reveals anything about me, it's that my excitement threshold for the mundane has probably always been exceedingly low.

The major thing I remember about that desk lamp was it was white all over (like the picture) and I ended up putting a green light-bulb in it so that all those late nights would be lit in a green glaze, which I thought was the coolest thing ever. This was the case until the early morning when my milk looked like orange juice (I shouldn't have to explain how eyes work). Red had always been my favorite color, but I think I blasted green into my brain so many nights that green just took over. How groovy was it that I got to spray our bedroom green every night as I crawled into that top bunk (much to my brother's chagrin down below)?

Even today if you saw the way I live, you'd say this guy is all about green. Not only is this time-waster of a site decked out in green, but I even have green sheets and towels (yes, I bought them for college). My walls are green. My desktop is green. I even like green tea. And I guess I have my 8th year of life, and one very funky birthday present, to thank for it. You know what else is green? No, not money. The Klingon Bird of Prey!

The "Soda Bark"

Fun fact:
Sprite cans
don't look like
this anymore.
*Mind blown*

To this day I am addicted... URRRP! (aw yeah) ...to all things fizz. Even plain old water, just put some bubbles in it and I'm good to go. These days I'll usually be in the process of finishing off a can of something or other any given hour of the day and my palette changes a lot (I've switched sides in the Cola War... sorry Pepsi, I still like your diet though), but when I was a kid my thing was Sprite, maybe because it was sweeter than 7up. I lived on the stuff. I drank it like water. You know how when people can't sleep they usually go for a glass of water or a swig from the ol' milk carton at 3am? I was not one of those people. When I was wandering the house in my undignified attire at 3 in the morning looking for fluids, I was gunning for the Sprite, because hey, it's "caffeine free" after all. That means I could have it before bedtime and not have to worry about being up at 3am and unable to sleep... which obviously didn't happen.

And not only did all this carbonation excess from the Sprite never fail to induce a powerful spell of deep-throated and continuous burping, it also made those burps taste their very best. That is, like pure monstrous awesome. And I don't care if you're going to hate me for saying it, but if you were ever your 8-year-old self once, you should know what I mean when I say that the second best part of putting soda into you was what it causes to come back out of you! I might polish off a can and lay back bobbing my head for minutes as the "rolling thunder" was wrought, or I might go a whole minute, the pressure building like a volcano, and then just release it like a beast! Loud and proud enough to make Simba blush, and especially if there were other maturity-impaired persons in the area, or just anyone who can appreciate ART when they hear it. 

Later I moved on up and outgrew such silly pursuits. I mean, why practice such an immature pastime as the "soda bark" once you've figured out how to burp loudly on command? My friend Nick taught me how to burp on command in the 3rd grade, and at school no less! It was like learning a super power. Now my burps were no longer tethered to food and drink, but anywhere and anytime, and with some practice (and a lot of accidental puking), I was able to make them at least as loud as the good old "soda barks" of yore. I know, it's a useful skill for any boy, but then again, seen any mammoths lately? We gotta do something to feel like true champions of manliness in a world with no mammoths! This is what we have to work with.

The only problem, besides the fact that girls avoided me like the plague (either grossed out or genuinely scared of the fucking TIGER I had roaring in my throat!) and teachers either thought I was just priming myself for the principal's office or about to explode ("are you okay Mark?), was that burps on command never came with that sweet, fresh, lemon-lime zest that just made the soda barks all the more special. But no worries, that's what burp-talking was for! And that usually consisted of me saying "penis" over and over, delivered in the key of tiger roar level belch. I was just a few letters away from the full alphabet.

It really is an art. And like any art, anyone can do it (anyone can pick up a paintbrush or bang on a piano too), but it takes talent and practice to REALLY rip 'em out loud and proud, like beautiful crescendos of throaty bullfrog blasts. I was never a prodigy, but I could hold my own. I mean, nothing was funnier sometimes than being around mixed company, like other parents or teachers, sitting there and letting out this ear-piercingly loud monster URRRRRRRRRRRRP!!! like a fucking subwoofer blitzing out, a tire popping, a lion roaring, or whatever else a deep-throated, full-throttle, earthquake-inducing, rip of esophageal man-thunder could be compared to... only to follow it up with a cute little "excuse me!"... like, you know, because that makes it all okay. And then do it again! Ah... memories.

Sometimes I swear I sucked so much air in, some of it would go missing inside me, only to come out as a fart instead. I mean, you'd be sitting there just clenching up again and again, sucking in air, putting stress on your whole body, and suddenly it would come out the other end.... FRRRRPF! And then it's like, wow, that was an unexpected treat! Yeah, nothing was wasted! Me and Nick both got a kick out of that, and wondered if it could work the same in reverse, or if we could master burping and farting at the same time, which is to be living the dream. We never reached that level though. That's beyond manly. That's God tier.

Still, with a little more practice...

The Shark Grabber

The annual Discovery Channel Shark Week is upon us! So in honor of my second favorite time of year, here be sharks! This one will be in the form of a toy which we all know for having made its big cinematic debut in the film E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial where it cameo'ed as "Shark Toy" in Elliot's fish tank. Truly Spielberg knew all too well Elliot's adage: “The fish eat the fish food, the shark eats the fish, and no one eats the shark!" That's all one needs to know when watching Shark Week. No one eats the shark indeed. They just blow the fucker up.

But when it comes to the shark grabber toy in my canon, I have a confession to make. One time in middle school we all took a field trip to a local zoo park, and upon visiting the gift shop, I saw one of those shark-shaped lazy grabbers. I immediately must've pictured myself grabbing distant things with it on a lazy summer couch potato day, and so naturally I had to have it just for the sake of awesomeness cred. BUTT alas, I didn't have any money on me. So I'm forced to confess that I stole said shark grabber thingy from the park... which was surprisingly easy to do, but yeah, a tragedy (and I throw myself on the mercy of the court!). Was it worth it? Of course not, because the thing couldn't grip anything, although it did annoy my girl cousins and my sister once or twice. Apparently shark grabbers are fond of short sleeves.

If it's any consolation, our class took a field trip to the Boston Museum of Science in the 3rd grade (one of the greatest places on earth for a kid like me), and when we came to the gift shop, I bought this really awesome pen that was shaped like a tiger shark with a removable tail fin for a cap. That one I kept with me for a long time, and it may even still be kicking around in my drawer somewhere with my old key chains. The ink ran out forever ago, but I kept it just for the awesomeness. You don't just throw shark pens in the trash. You respect the shark. Nobody eats him! (except me, at the sushi bar.)

Going Native at "Indian Head"

Every summer growing up, our parents used to take us up to a popular spot in Franconia Notch NH called "Indian Head" just a few miles down the road from what (sadly) used to be "the Old Man of the Mountain" natural monument. (No, not the Old Coot of the Mountain, that's a different guy.) For anyone who doesn't know from your New Hampshire state quarters, "the Old Man of the Mountain" or "Profile Rock" was a cliff side off of Cannon Mountain in the White Mountains that from a certain angle... looked like an Abraham-Lincolny face. Sadly this icon fell down a few years back, but there's another profile rock worth checking out if you're ever in that "neck of the woods" (literally) called "Indian Head"... a mountain cliff that someone thought looked like a (ahem) "First Nations" man's head. (I don't know, looked like Abraham Lincoln to me.) Regardless, we used to stay at the Indian Head Resort up there, and while there's enough about that to warrant its own post (in time), I'm going to focus this one on something no less amazing to me, albeit far... far less grand. I'm talking about cheap paper hats, plastic bows, and rubber drum sets. 

Oh yeah. 

Flamingo feathers??

The Indian Head Resort had its own gift shop (just like everything) where they sold various """""Native American"""""-ish gifts, toys, shotglasses and the like, and believe it or not, perusing this little overstocked alcove was the height of any four day stay for me. The reason? Namely, cheap paper """""Native American"""" headdresses, plastic bows, and rubber drums sets. These were a MUST have. There was no question about it. The headdresses were just a red paper front with an "eh, close enough..." """""Native American"""" pastiche design on it tied around the back with an elastic string which always broke out of its staple 20 minutes after wearing it, and poised atop would be five or six colored feathers. I could put this thing on and feel like I was the "Brave Chief" for the day (as it said on the hat)... or at least for 20 minutes.

My parents usually passed on the drum kits and archery sets because they were expensive (and eBay doesn't lie), and you have to consider that getting one of anything always meant getting two of anything (because close-in-age brothers be like that.) But I do remember getting the bow and arrow and the drum kit at least once, and I even have photographic evidence of this fact (see above). The archery set came with a couple of "suction cup" arrows that would get lost 10 minutes after they were torn from the package, a flimsy bow with a string that wouldn't send them any decent distance anyway, and a fake plastic knife that probably found its way under the car seat for the rest of the trip. The drum kit was one of those mock "hide drum" cans with some rubber stretched over both ends to make it look more """""Native American"""" I guess. It wasn't loud enough to annoy my parents but was damn cool enough to keep us entertained in the backseat of the car as we jotted down the Kancamagus.

And I say that in all respect, because I don't for a second think any of these things communicate any significance about actual Native American history or culture, which I was genuinely interested in as a kid, but to the 8YO me, these little trinkets were just the coolest toys I could imagine having in a place called "Indian Head" up in the scenic splendor of the White Mountains. I may have once or twice walked all of "the Flume" with my feathery gear intact. If you don't know what that is, you're just going to have to check it out for yourself... or wait until I tell the tale.

The Great Webelo Day Camp Event

Proud Webelo!

Sometime during the wet season back yonder in my lore, my entire Cub Scout council was invited to go on this "day camp experience." It was going to be a whole day of fun activities in the great outdoors, and we'd be the proud owners of a pretty big badge if we went, so naturally I went (for the badge mostly). I also wanted to get my feet wet in the whole "camp experience" thing since I dreaded going on an "overnight" (there were some things I just didn't want to see go down in a tent). So my dad and I set off in the wee hours of the morning to get hammered by the uber-scouting pack leader (who scared me on a daily basis a la Bushwhacked) for being "out of uniform" without my neckerchief.

So, once again, my dad and I set off in the later wee hours of the morning after the uniform dysfunction (which didn't even matter because nobody could see it under the coat anyways), and a couple hours later we finally arrived at the destination way, way, waaay the hell out in the sticks. Even just the bungly road out to the camp was designed to really give off that whole "rustic" experience, being about three miles of twisty, turny, bouncy dirt, rocks, and general woodsy "initiation turbulence" through the middle of the forest. At a speed limit of 2 miles per hour, no drink in any cup-holder was safe, and we both emerged in a state of involuntary spasm. Welcome to "Camp Norse"... a camp hardcore enough for the Norsemen, as I understood it. It's not anywhere near where I live (or anyone else for that matter) so don't even try to track me down.

The actual cabin.

From there on the trip quickly went downhill. First of all, of all the scouts in the entire council  only like four or five of us showed up to "represent," which means we were severely, severely outmatched by the other councils who had upwards of tens and twenties of scouts. Secondly, we learned that we were going to be lugging around a giant sled like a pack of Iditarod dog teams, in what was supposed to have been the fluffy snow which turned out to be mush and pine needles. Thirdly, it was damp, muddy, and damn cold. 

So here we were, all four of us sturdy-bodied ten-year-olds, dragging this giant heavy-ass snow sled with all our equipment on it from activity station to activity station, across wet pine needles, rocks, and downed tree branches which had to be frequently moved, falling down on our faces in the cold hard mud, as the other councils zipped around with twenty or so older and stronger guys in tow. We quickly became known by all the other competing councils as "the losers." One team even had wheels on their sled! All the while our drill sergeant pack leader would crack his metaphorical whip, shouting at us to "pick up the pace" and to "put our [you-know-whats] into it" (whatever that meant), but taking time to assure us that if there had been snow, that team with the wheels would've been screwed. I suppose that made me stop and ignore the pain in my shoulders, the humiliation of being in last place, and the cold mud on my drenched pants for a half-second. 

So the activities included things like climbing trees, building a fire, walking a tight-rope, archery, javelin throw, and our personal worst, tying knots. By the time we made it to any of the activity areas though, we were so grateful just to have made it that we didn't really care about doing what was set out at these stops, so we basically failed at everything. That's not even some cynical joke either, we really did fail at everything, but damn it, we were getting our badge!

But for what exactly? Well, certainly not for lame stuff like selling cookies and threading colored yarn and the sissy stuff the "girl scouts" do, or whatever. No. We were doing real Scout stuff. Boy stuff! Stuff like swearing, talking blood and guts, and joking about Your Mom... And penises and boners and poop... amid the near-constant chorus of burping and farting, and peeing, and farting and burping, and penises, and peeing and farting, and boners and farting, and peeing, and penises and farting and...  Merit badge please! (Like I said.... boy stuff!)

All joking aside though... even regardless of what horror stories and stereotypes you've heard about Boy Scouts... seriously, you'd still be surprised at how correct they all are and at how many bathroom stops boys need in a ten hour period of strenuous labor in the woods, for which we literally had the trees. It's like, you put us together in the woods, and our cycles align. Really, bodily functions and Your Mom jokes are about 80% of what Boy Scouts do on these trips. It's real. And it's a problem. 

"No pain, no gain," our pack leader said.

Picture Credit: Scouting Magazine

But through it all, at least we got outside, got to stretch our legs (and then some!), and got enough combined "pull my finger" and "number one, number two? Go find a tree!" jokes out of our systems to satiate our humor palettes for at least a couple days. And we got serious, serious props at the next council meeting for at least showing up and braving the wilds, the battles, and each other, to represent the council. And each of us came home with a sweet, well-deserved badge commemorating the valiant "effort," which we could lord over all the "no-show wusses." 

Still a proud Webelo...at heart! (Not in reality, because that would be weird).

End the Overalls

For some reason parents in the 80's and 90's saw it necessary to lock their children into their pants. I don't know if this was supposed to be some kind of Puritanical chastity device or a necessary measure to combat pedos in the times of the Satanic daycares (never understood the panic by the way... all I got at my Satanic daycare was a "time out" for pulling my pants down...), but like all well-intentioned 80s-90s ploys to potentially protect us from the big bad world, it backfired royally, and once again it was only us kids who suffered. I don't know if that's the reason these particular type of pants became fashionable, but I wouldn't doubt it.

In any case, these things called "overalls" were somewhat fashionable at the time, especially for girls, but where they at least didn't crowd their style (at least for tomboys), the whole "farmer John" hillbilly look was not only trauma-inducing for anyone who wasn't a girl, but was also potentially hazardous. Once again, I speak from personal experience. I mean, as weird as it sounds, it's an immutable truth... sometimes in life you just need to be able to take your pants off, or at least be able to get at your merchandise, and that's true for everyone of every time period. These pants in question made it damn near impossible to do just that, which is why they were evil. Either that or I was an idiot kid. 

I happen to remember one panic-inducing bathroom experience at school when I was little, being unable to unhook those metal loops (this was when I was more youngish, you see). I just could not unloop them no matter how long I tried, and I wasn't going to go ask someone to "do it for me" because that's embarrassing, ridiculous, and probably could've landed that person in jail. And no, there was no zipper or anything else, which in my opinion just makes any piece of clothing a torture device. So it was either stay locked in and suffer, of somehow get out of the contraption and do what more and more ferociously needed to be done! Well, it wasn't much of a choice either way. One way or another, that baby was being born! But the seconds turned into minutes. I was standing there in the bathroom stall at school desperately tugging on the loops, furiously yanking at the clips, stomping my feet, holding back the internal surge with all my might and strength, doubling over on the wall, clenched up, sweating, every muscle straining, holding that beast back even as it was already stepping out bit by bit... just desperately NEEDING that sweet sweet release. That big put-off long-awaited ka-BOOM!... but then... but then!!

Actually I don't remember how I solved the problem, or if I even did... But one thing is for sure... one way or another... it came out... and it was most likely both horrendous and yet utterly GLORIOUS. I'm sure angels with harps descended on each side of me singing "Hallelujah." Either way, perhaps I blocked it out for my own good. It was fucking traumatic, that's all I know. Everyone talks about how great childhood was in the 80s and 90s simply because they've been able to block out things like this! This is why I implore people today to never put anyone over (or under) the age of five into these things. Maybe these were cool for guys back in the 30s, but those days done.

Girls actually do look pretty good in overalls, I got to admit, especially when it's all they got on... but what do I know about "clothing?" ;)

A Very 8YO Me Christmas

I was always a naughty boy. I never believed in the fat man... no matter how much of a cool dude I thought The Santa Clause's "Bernard the Elf" was. (Bernard was my DUDE.) Seriously though, I loved that movie... the death of Santa Claus, the bumbling Tim Allen as a first-time Santa and longtime dimwit dad ("And THAT is exactly why you want a high-quality fire extinguisher... right in the kitchen!"), the "plain milk's fiiiine"... the E.L.F. Squad, the farting reindeer... all classic Yuletide stuff. That's more my speed. 

Now go ahead and call me "not sentimental" or whatever (like my girlfriend does), but I guess I was always just a big cynic about the whole "Christmas" thing. Probably because my parents were. We weren't religious, so for me, Christmas was always far more pragmatic than "magical." Long car rides around the neighborhood at night to go look at the people's lights were the highlights of our traditions, so if there's one thing I still love about this time of year, it's the lights. And the candy. And the presents. And the candy "reindeer poop." 

That's what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown. That's the "naughty list Christmas," and it's the best kind. And I'll tell you why... it's the most miraculous. 

Yeah Christmas for me was about jumping in the warm car to go tramp around in the ice cold evening wind for an hour or two admiring the lights around the lake, usually accompanied with a trip to the local church light display said to be one of the biggest on the eastern seaboard. Waiting in the never-ending traffic of the nighttime rush hour stall getting over to the light display as the heat in the car approached Death Valley levels... THAT was the "magic of the season!" Listening to Jerry Matthis belt out "It's the most wonderful time of the year!" five times over while dad drove us around in circles in the packed parking lot was truly the "spirit of the holidays." And it was considered a "miracle" if we found a prime spot right up front (near the nativity set). I swear, those glowing figurines always looked so charming and innocent when caught in the headlights!

Yes, Christmas was about the details of getting through it. All the little chores. One year, me, my dad, and my brother attempted to assemble the fake Christmas tree for the living room, and it took nearly the whole day. We rolled the plastic Douglas Fur out of the box, and when the trunk wasn't fitting together, my dad literally took the thing to his workbench in pieces to rig up some PVC piping to hold them in place. His explanation was that by the time the thing was decorated we wouldn't even notice it, before going off on a tirade against the "plastic Christmas tree industry" for over-engineering the thing so damn much with their "know-it-all college degrees." We stuck the pieces together, bottom to top, and set to work unfolding the branches. Then we took a step back, and something didn't look quite right. 

"Dad, I think it's upside down..." I said.

Sure enough, the tree started out small at the bottom and was exploding near the top! After a laugh, we pulled it apart, tore off all the "modifications," and put it together the way those college-educated know-it-alls at the company most likely intended. We threw on some ornaments and three hours after we had first taken it from the box, it was up, with all its pieces in the right order. Something tells me it would've been up in twenty minutes if mom was home. *knock knock*

Christmas was long hours fighting the traffic over to the mall for shopping trips, begging my parents to go this or there and joking about the empty chair for the mall Santa... ("Guess he had to hit the magical CAN!" I'd joke). The mall was always so decorated and lit up, and bustling around Christmas time. We could barely even play "the black floor tiles are lava" as me and my brother were tugged through the crowds. We could barely make it through the Radio Shack, the Discovery Store, the KB Toys... and whatever that store was that had the wooden train set you could play with right in the store... you know, all the COOL stores! No, they were "too crowded." "Too many kids." But damn it, the JC Penny and the Sears? We spent sooooo much damn time looking at comforter sets, curtain rods, and crock pots. Too damn long for the 8-year-old me... One time I got so frustrated I pulled down my pants right in the store! My brother did the same right after me, and it worked! Our parents pulled us out of there so fast you'd think we'd set off a bomb. We got a good whoppin' for that. Merry Christmas! 

Welcome to the Jungle!

Lights have always been more my bag. It just isn't Christmas until you've untangled the thicket of green wires freshly gutted from the cardboard box, and then gone through one after another looking for that stubborn one that's out in the whole set. It's not really Christmas until you rig up the lights only to find out that none of the reds work. It was never really Christmas until we had littered the living room floor with wrapping paper and the boxes of ornaments, fought over who got to use the tape and where the extra scissors went, and wrapped all the presents like tootsie rolls because I couldn't wrap a box worth a damn. Then I guess, it wasn't really Christmas until we came up from our bedroom in the morning to find waaay more gifts than were there the night before, knowing that mom and dad must've had a busy night (especially if a new Lego set was in there!). Magic!

Wow! I've been a naughty boy all year and I still got the Lego set! It's a Christmas miracle! I KNEW Santa wasn't real! 

The E.L.F. Squad though, that's legit. 

Merry Chex-Mix.

Bubble Pipes and Blanket Capes

I don't smoke... any substances, but I once did. Back when I was somewhere around six or seven, I was known to smoke a bottle of bubble soap a day. I was addicted to my bubble pipes, whether they had the soap in them or not. Something about having a plastic pipe hanging out the side of my lips just seemed like the coolest thing in the world, and I'm sure everyone thought I'd be tarring up my lungs nice a thick for the rest of my life as a result. This hasn't been the case, so (*raspberry sound*) to them.

I don't always dig through the reams of photography taken of me (conveniently stored in one of those old cardboard fruit bins you used to see at the supermarkets sitting up on my bookshelves), but when I do, it can sometimes feel like a safari expedition into the surreal. There I find plenty a picture of me wearing a blanket as a cape, usually with some kind of hat and bubble pipe completing the ensemble. Truly, the further back in time I dig, the dorkier it gets. And I know I sound vain, but this stuff just has to be documented. This is as dorky as it can get, and yet I hope you agree, pretty much as awesome as it can get too... or cringey... you decide. 

Me, living the dream.

I don't know if I was trying to be some super hero who smoked a pipe, or what that was about, but no getup seemed complete without the blanket cape and bubble pipe accessories back then, and arguably, no getup was as cool without them. And wearing a cape didn't do me any harm either. I never tried to "fly," ...at least not without trying to take off from the ground first!

T-shirt, sweatpants, bubble pipe, blanket cape, cardboard roll, poofball stocking cap, indoor trampoline... the pieces are all coming together.

Cutting a Penny in Half

It doesn't take too long when you're a kid to learn that what they're selling this time of year isn't going to be half as good out of the box as it looks on TV. The commercial might have said the toy truck had "real world sounds!!" but to my ear, all I could ever hear was the same old white noise "SHHHHHHH" (like tuning the radio) every time I pressed its buttons. Yeah, that whole "real world sounds!" thing was a complete sham. I can give you "real world sounds" that sound better... from my ASS!

But there was a time when I was still dumb enough to believe anything I saw in a commercial, so when they had those "super scissors" infomercials back in the day with the funky-looking scissors cutting through leather, vinyl, aluminum, and even pennies like cold butter, my dad was sure to buy, even with the two easy payments of 9.99 and shipping! Apparently I wasn't the only one dumb enough.

"It so tough, it can cut a penny in half!" That was a claim worth the price of the pair in and of itself in my book. Even my dad was so impressed that he called them up, and in weeks we had our new pair of scissors in the mail. As was custom with probably everyone else who bought these "super scissors," we immediately got on that important task of actually cutting a penny in half, and damn was that one tough nut to crack!

Unlike in the commercial, which showed it cutting straight through with barely any force, it took the strength of all three of us men in the house (the 8yo-me, my 7yo-brother, and dad) to get the job done. I remember my dad, after laying them down on the table and using his full arm, made the first short incision on the side, and then my brother and I took over huffing and puffing until the thing finally gave through and the pieces shot in opposite directions across the room! So yeah, they didn't lie, per se, because it was possible, just damn hard. Wise purchase it was.

After the quest to deface currency was over, and 25 bucks was considered well spent for ten minutes, those "super scissors" promptly found their way into the kitchen drawer, and were used...as regular scissors from there on out whenever we lost the regular 2 dollar pair. The "strongest scissors in the world!!" completely sucked at cutting holiday wrapping paper! Heck, I can cut better shit... with my ASS! 

The Zombie Pumpkin

This may or may not be the ill-fated gourd.
I'm the one in orange.

Some time around my 10th year of life my local Cub Scouts den was holding its annual pumpkin carving contest at its Halloween shindig. Yes, costumes were involved and I think I went dressed as "some guy in a cape" because I liked capes and that was that. Capes and top hats, for some reason that definitely has everything to do with that debonair grasshopper guy from the James and the Giant Peach movie...  (man did I love his cool top hat in that one scene). 

Anyways, we had been tasked with carving the scariest pumpkin face for a chance to win some stupid prize, and I was all over this. We got our pumpkin carving kits, the little saws and knives, and the book of scary faces to trace, and I took home my pumpkin intent on owning that competition. I hacked my way through this thing, gutting it and scooping up all that orange puke and seeds and went to town with the tracing paper and whatnot. Then I just let the thing sit out for two weeks.

After the first week, I began to notice how the cover didn't fit as well as it did the first night, and then how the eyes were getting all soft and soggy, and then how oblong the thing got, like it had been sitting under something. A few days later, there were dark spots on the inside, and gray spots on the outside, and I just figured "Well, maybe nobody will notice." By the time I was set to bring this Jack-O-Lantern to the contest, it was barely holding itself together. One wrong move, and it was just going to smoosh down into moldy, green and orange smelly mush... green of course, being the mold. Apparently I was supposed to refrigerate it or something.

So like a dork I brought it in anyway and sat it down next to all the other entries looking store-bought fresh by comparison, thinking "oh well, there's no way I'm winning this one." If anyone asked me which one was mine I'd just point the one next to it. So I went about the Halloween party jumping on the stacks of folding tables, getting yelled at for jumping on the stacks of folding tables, and doing whatever else so that I could ignore the putrid oozy mush ball at the front of the room. When it finally came time to reveal who had won the pumpkin carving contest, I may have taken a short retreat to the bathroom just so I wouldn't have to be seen lugging my smelly, moldy, wilted, zombie of a pumpkin off the stage like a double loser.

They awarded 3rd place, 2nd place, and lo and behold, tagged that last big blue ribbon on the side of none other than my decrepit mush of a hollowed-out gourd. Now I swear to you, the whole place just nodded their heads in agreement, for surely, that thing was the scariest one indeed. And when I went up to accept my stupid prize, I learned a valuable lesson about what being a Boy Scout is all about: being prepared. I may have told one or two people that I did it on purpose, and that it was supposed to be a "zombie pumpkin," as in, "from beyond the pumpkin grave," but I only wished I came up with something that ingenious on purpose. Either way, I went home that night with a swell of pride. The pumpkin went in the trash on the way out the door.

P.S. - For disaster relief in the wake of "Frankenstorm," this former Boy Scout asks you to consider a donation to the American Red Cross to assist people struggling in New York, New Jersey, and affected areas. Thank you.

School Recorders

Music class in elementary school was about keeping us as far away from actual instruments as possible. The schools were cheap and they knew we couldn't play real instruments anyways, so anything wooden or plastic was good enough. Why else did we always seem to end up with things like "maracas," "tambourines," "rain sticks" and those "cheese grater" things you had to run a stick on?

When it came to teaching us how to make a clatter similar to the sound of falling down in a janitor's closet, it was a grand ole time. We had so much fun, half the girls were almost tempted to put down their Tamagotchis! So you'd think a rambunctious runt like me should've fit in perfectly, but such was sadly untrue. Apparently I took clatter to a whole other level, and how was I punished? With a recorder.

"Recorders" is what they called them. They're some kind of flute-like instrument that makes an ear-piercing "tone" by default when blown into, and while they told me it was adjustable by placing my fingers over the holes and whatnot, I never figured that part out. The typical ones they handed out in droves came tan and pre-slobbered on by a thousand other kids over the years, but if you were lucky enough to have them run out they'd give you the black one to take home instead, and all of a sudden that shit got classy! You were sure to get laid if you got your recorder. It was a boner-fide babe magnet!

Nah. That is how they sold it, but no, it didn't get you laid. Even if you were lucky to get a black one (which may or may not have been bigger), there was no escaping the fact that it was probably the dorkiest instrument ever made. That may be why I was so crushed to be the last kid in class without one. And with my "I bet you could play that thing from yer butt!" joke firmly cemented into the minds of any and all in attendance, I had pretty much sealed my fate. I definitely wasn't getting laid any time soon.

You see, the music teacher didn't let the rambunctious "music makers" like me at the back of the class have one until we cleaned up our act and stopped playing with all the instruments, and that fact just took a few weeks too many to sink in for me. I mean come on, my "stick it in yer butt!" joke was def worth it! I mean, who doesn't love a good ole' colonic calliope? But then suddenly everyone else in the class had their own, and that was okay until it basically came down to just me, and only then did I start feeling like the odd one out. She upped the ante too when she started handing out cool blue suede slip cases for them, so I finally decided to stifle myself, and tame that wild urge to compulsively spin the rain sticks and shake the maracas.

What did I care about that those recorders anyways? I wanted a rad slip case!

The End of My BMX Career

Being a dudebro, there were many times throughout my first 10 years when my brain was just... out to lunch. It happens to the best of us. But the biggest brain shut down I ever experienced (even bigger than the time I learned just how funny 'man pain' is) once again involved me and my bike, but this time some concrete stairs as well. And instead of my down below ugly bits, it involved my head. I had this red Huffy like the one seen in the picture here, and it survived the fall fine. Unfortunately though, I'm not a bicycle. Now I can't fathom what was going through my mind when I attempted to ride my bike down the concrete stairs at the age of 9 (nor remember it, like many things I did before this incident), but it probably had to do with a vision of performing an awesome trick I'd seen, coupled with the thought "it looked so easy on TV," coupled with the kind of daring stupidity that being male and being 9 will do to you.

So without a functioning brain, or a helmet, I came to the edge of the staircase on my bike, a full six steps to the concrete path below, and decided to take the plunge. I backed up a few feet and then peddled toward the edge again, thinking only of how "totally rad" it was going to be, even if I had to deal with a couple mere "bumps" on the way down. A second later, and my front tire had left the top step. It bounced down one, skid to another, and sent the back of the bike up in the air and down on itself. I was thrown clear of the seat, and landed head first on the concrete after a brief tumble down the stairs myself, probably going full scorpion on the ground. In a another second's time, I made the passage from breathing to bleeding, and then to screaming, and my BMX career was over just like that. Not so awesome.

My mom happened to be in the garden and came running over. It was one of those times where the pain was so intense that I didn't even feel it for the first couple seconds, and then all of a sudden the real burn started setting in as blood just poured down my forehead. She picked my whole body off the ground and ran me inside to drop me in the kitchen sink, where she started spraying me with the sink hose as "squirts" of blood seeped out of my head. It may have been why I never learned the times tables, or why this site even exists, but there was definitely some head trauma going on...

Now I must have a very thick skull (well, duh!), because I didn't need stitches or anything more than a wrapping of towels and gauze for the rest of the day. It took years for the small "dent" in my forehead to heal up and even now there's a few ridges there. Luckily, my head was temporarily alright so I could continue to jeopardize it in the future to even more brain-dead stunts, which I did, but I actually did learn a valuable lesson here: It helps to keep the brain fully functioning at all times; and if you're going to ride your bike down a flight of concrete steps, trying to flaunt skills you don't yet have, at least wear a helmet! Trust me, this kind of pain isn't funny.

Fireworks and Glowsticks!

The best part of the early summer has to be the fireworks. Every year we'd get out of school a little bit in June, and that whole week was just spent hanging out, vegging out, and getting used to not having to put up with that daily school grind for once. The days were hot, long, and spent doing... well, nothing. That was usually more my speed, as I'm a creature of comfort. But summer has to start sometime, and that was always the 4th of July. If you didn't know by now, I'm American, and I'm sorry. But... Cookouts, fireworks, and glowsticks! Let the summer begin!

Even though it's illegal here, people were always firing them off from their backyards anyways. So we might've had a local puff here or there to "ooh" at, but as evening set in, we'd set out in search of the town displays. We'd fight the miles of traffic and spend a half hour just finding a spot to park, and often get there half into it and have to find another one to go to. Grand finales could be seen from miles away, so we'd chase down any puff of color in the sky as the crackles rumbled here and there in the dark. Once or twice we'd get a little too close and the ash would actually start falling down on us (like this one time when I was sitting up in the jungle gym at a local field), and that would just rock my world! "The closer, the better!" I used to think. But my parents always kept us at a safe and car-convenient distance... sometimes my brother and I would even sit on the roof of the car to watch them.

We never prepared. Sometimes we brought a blanket to sit on, but that was it. We knew whatever we had with us we were probably going to be carrying for a mile or two, and it seemed like a good idea then to travel light. But as soon as we were down in the thick of it with everyone else, and sitting out on the grass or the concrete, I always started getting envious of all those people who had packed half their house for the event. They'd all be out there with their folding chairs, portable radios, coolers, and summertime foodstuffs, like watermelons slices and Popsicles, and it always looked a heck of a lot better than just sitting it out on the grass. But I took comfort in knowing that they were NEVER getting out of there! Hell, even we were booking it half way into the grand finale!

Probably just as exciting to the 8yo-me as the fireworks were the glowsticks, necklaces, and bracelets that used to be rolled around on the carts. These guys would come around with about a hundred of these colorful glowing loops and sell them right off their body for like, 2 bucks a pop, and all the kids went crazy for them. As soon as things started getting nice and dark, I'd start seeing other kids with two or three around their neck and couple at the wrists just twirling those brilliant reds and blues and greens in circles and throwing them in the air, and that's when I'd start begging. 

And I mean, BEGGING. I'm talking, hands clasped, on my knees... "I'll do the dishes the rest of my friggin' LIFE, mom!" kind of begging. "I'll clean my room. I'll always put the seat down. Anything! Just ONE glow ring! PLEASE!" No one ever wanted anything more than I wanted one of those glowy things. Even just one was enough. So once I FINALLY had one slung around my neck, I was officially having a good time... for the week! And then (seriously though) the kids who had dozens of them were just straight up Mussolini to me. Hell hath no fury like the envy I felt (and still feel) for the kids at these events who had parents who'd buy them half the cart of glowy-things and then set them loose around the crowds to show off how cool they were to have ALL the glowy things, because that was too cool, and it wasn't fair, and envy makes me... feel things... horrible things. 

Anyways I remember the little bubbles on the inside, and that if you snapped them or chewed on them (like I could never stop myself from doing), they'd soon start going dead, but at least a few times my brother and I would be wearing them all the way home in the dark car, twirling them around, and even sleeping with them lighting up the room. They never seemed to last very long, even later into the night, but just like the 4th of July, and summer itself, they certainly were fun while they lasted.

** Happy 4th! **

Leap Day!

I really have no idea what to say, but how often do you get to blog on February 29th? If it was my birthday, I'd technically only be seven years old. I'd like to think I am sometimes.

I don't know what I was doing on February 29th, 1992, or 1996, but I wasn't enjoying the extra school day in 1996, that's for sure. It was a Thursday (I looked it up)... which as memory serves meant tater tots in the cafeteria... not that I ate lunch from a Styrofoam tray, but tater tots were pretty cool. I literally remember Thursday for being tater tot day at the elementary school, (Pizza was Wednesdays)...which means the cycle of lunches must've been altered in 1996 because of the extra day. Think about it. Maybe there was two tater days!

Maybe I don't know how the calendar works.

VHS in the Sitter's Playroom

One thing was bound to warm ya up on a cold day, when you're staying indoors at the sitters and probably watching Disney movies or whatever other KidsSongs "VHS BS" they had stacked on the shelves in the plush-carpeted playroom. I remember it well. We'd freeze on the dark, cold mornings the whole way over to the sitter's house in the car, waiting for it to warm up, and mom would be rushing us out the door with lies about how she was "already supposed to be at work." Then we'd come into the well-lit playroom at the sitter's house... a large den with a wide plush blue carpet, toys lined against the wall, a television in a case resting low on the floor, and a solitary couch we'd all fight over... and we'd hunker down with a very overplayed VHS tape until we had to go to school. That would shut us up. Especially me. Heck, never mind shut up, my brain would shut off!

The classic blue Disney logo with the pipes on the end would play, and we'd get maybe an hour into The Fox in the Hound, The Jungle Book, or The Little Mermaid, before we'd have to call it quits. There were many movies I never got to see the end of simply because we had to cut it short to go to school, but there'd always be something playing, whether it was early morning Nick shows or a movie. Those of us with shorter attention spans might wander away and play with the toys, and those of us with less brainpower to resist the television spell would be glued to it. Needless to say, the moment a TV went on anywhere, I was losing brainpower (if I had any). It didn't matter how silly or weird or just plain girly it was... if it was on, I watched it. So I watched a lot of slowly degenerating celluloid crap.

Which is a pretty good thing for me, considering all the crap they shoved onto home video in the 90s! They had a "home video" for everything, from "Be Cool! About Fire Safety!" videos that taught you how to start a grease fire, to "stranger danger raps" that made getting molested the "cool and hip" thing to do, to instructional videos about how to amaze people at a party with the whole "staircase behind a couch" trick, to videos that were just kids singing Jeff Fogerty and Beach Boys songs... no joke. All of this was of course always delivered in pristine no-budget, with adult C-list celebrities invariably there to serve out DUI community service sentences, and always the absolute dorkiest-looking kids imaginable (soooo in need of a good pummeling in the groin it's not even funny, I swear...), ever partying it up to corny music sprinkled with a metric ton of terrible acting. Never once did I learn anything useful from any of it, except maybe the importance of hiding my shame, and my rapidly depleting Y chromosome due to plastics in the water.

And for those too young and privileged to not know what KidsSongs was, here's everything you need to know, from "Let's Play Ball"... the Mona Lisa of corny straight-to-video, badly lip-synched kiddertainment... warning, it will get stuck in your head forever... and yeah, you bet I sang and danced along to it in my day...

On the weekends when we didn't have school, we'd still be at the sitter's, and we'd be there all day long, so there was a hell of a lot more time to sit around watching movies for the umpteen-millionth time. I'd be there with my legs dangling off the couch, trying to be comfortable, while we watched tape after tape of whatever silliness was in store. I don't know how our sitter could stand it... endless repetition of "Skip to my Loo," the "I Wanna Be a Fireman" one, the "I Get Around" go-kart one (actually, that was pretty cool), the "Down By the Bay" cringefest, with all the kids, and particularly the girls, singing along, each in unison... ad infinitum, ad nauseum. "Do your ears hang low? Do they wobble to and fro?" ... Needless to say, I watched it, and yes, I sang along too. "Do you hear farts blow?..." etc.  

If only!

At some point we'd all be called into the kitchen, and we'd sit at the lower table and eat our Eggo waffles (always Eggos for breakfast, loaded with syrup... back when I liked syrup that is), and then we'd head back and resume our movie. Those Eggos were about the best thing to look forward to every morning. In fact, now that I've watched this crap again, I could go for some now. 

Alright Class, Form a Line...

If your elementary school was anything like mine, you probably spent a third of your day in line. There were lines to get into the building from the bus, lines to use the bathroom, lines to go to the gym, lines to leave the gym, lines to go to lunch, lines to go to recess, lines to come in from recess, lines to go wait for the bus...etc. They crisscrossed the school, went up and down stairs, stretched the length of the brick walls and carpets with no end in sight... unless you were the end (in which case, your day sucked). "Hey you in front of me, no farting!"

At least 10 minutes of every hour was spent lining up at the end of every major class before being shuffled on to the next. What were they teaching us? How to use a DMV branch? How to get a deal on black Friday? And if you cut, it was just as painful as either of those scenarios. If you so much as cut one space ahead, you were going to bare the sting of poison arrows of death, and they'd be coming at you in the words, "Hey! No Cutting! Teacher! He cut! No Cutting!!" If you cut, sometimes you had to go to the back of the line, to hang out with the other losers. Other times, you'd be sent to death row and executed (...a lineup there too).

During all that useless tedium in the lines, we usually tried to find ways to entertain ourselves. One game I remember was the staring contest. You look the kid in front of you in the eyes, and they look back, and the first one to crack up loses. Now I can't stress enough how much I sucked at this game. A tomboyish girl and I once engaged in a staring contest while in line, and she was going cross-eyed, sticking out her tongue, pulling her lips open.. and I was busting! She wasn't cracking up, per se... just visibly in hysterics behind buttoned lips. As far as I know, that's cheating, but then again, I didn't know too far.

Less of a game and more of an annoyance was the classic flat tire. This was usually only doable if the line was in motion. You simply step on the back of the kid's shoe in front of you as they are walking, causing it to come off their heel, and thus causing temporary hilarity. This worked best with girls who usually wore less rugged shoes, but man did they go off every time I tried it! Let me take this opportunity to apologize to any girl out there whose expensive shoes may have had a buckle snap thanks to my ingenious attempts at momentary comic relief...

Probably the grossest game you could play in line was the spit swap, where you spit in your hand and then shake the hand of the person behind you. Depending on how coordinated the line was, this might set off a chain reaction whereby the shaker becomes the spitter for the kid behind him...etc. It's kind of like the grade school version of passing around STDs, and I don't think I could recommend doing it, although it probably accounted for some of the chronic strep throat that gained me many a day off from school in my time.

The funniest game though (besides farting on the kid in back of you) was undoubtedly the good old nut kick. This was only achieved if the victim was a boy, and only excusable when the perpetrator was a girl (and yet still somehow seemed less cruel if they were another boy). This one's pretty self explanatory, but usually involved either back kicking a boy behind you in the groin (the preferred method if you were a girl), or kicking up through his legs when behind him (if you were a girl and really good at it). This might be done for any number of warranted reasons (like it being funny), or (if you were a girl) just because he was in your way.

But while that may have been the funniest, by far the funnest game was without a doubt the domino effect. This should be self explanatory. One kid (usually at the back of the line) pushes another, and that kid knocks into another kid, and before you know it, the whole line is going down... and by the time it gets to front, bodies are hitting the floor! It could be revenge on the kids in the front of the line, or just random idiocy, but when it happened, it was the highlight of any day for sure. The teachers may have cancelled our recess once or twice over it, but it was worth it.

At the end of the day, I remember the minutes ticking down as we all stood in line, waiting for the buses to show up, minute after minute, inching further and further up... I remember standing there with all these fantasies snowballing in my head about laying down and falling asleep right there, and what would probably happen. If I did, nobody would be allowed to "cut" me, so they'd all have to wait for me to move. Then they'd all miss their bus and they'd have to all cram into the office and place about 30 different calls to come get picked up. Damn the bureaucracy! 

But at least then no one would be a filthy cutter. 

Battlefield Snowball and the Fort

It's not really winter unless you got snow, and it's not really fun until you've hucked your first snowball. That's right, snow... soft, fluffy, white, "melts in your mouth and in your hands" ...nature's ready-made water-flavored desert... and yet it makes for the best fire power around. The art of the perfect snowball has been passed down over generations... we all know you got to melt them a little in your hands to make them crystallize nice and hard, and that you got to make a few dozen of them to stockpile behind your obligatory snow fort...etc. We all know you aim for the groin... or worse, the neck!

We all remember that energizing feeling you get when you thought you weren't going to last twenty minutes out there in the icy wind and then somehow went four hours in change, when you're actually starting to shed layers because you're all worked up... when your hands, ears, and cheeks are beet red, and your clothes soaked, but you go on hucking at the ramparts anyways because... well, it's wintertime damnit and there's fun to be had. That, and you got to nail that other kid who just got you in the back of the neck! The weak spot!

When you first step out on the crunchy white of the backyard, it was like setting the first line of footprints on the moon or some high tundra place where nothing but the neighbor's cat has ever been. Oh the joy it was to be in it up to your hip! Then by the end of the day, after all the shots have been fired and your mittens and boots are soaked right through, not a single patch of even snow exists anywhere. The battlefield sure was a hallowed spot by the end of the day, scarred by the scorch of twenty thousand footprints and a few pairs of mittens. They'll be found in the spring, along with that shoe of yours that came loose at some point. (We boys have a knack for losing shoes and not even realizing it).

Second only to throwing snow was eating it, and like I said earlier, snow was a real treat... piquant, crunchy at times like you had to swirl it around in your mouth to get it to melt... but the best stuff was the powdery fluff that dusted up in your mouth and stuck to the sides before melting down. It was like cotton candy. Then there were icicles, which were a delicacy... you crack them off whatever they're hanging on, and suck on them like a Popsicle. If they hung from a wooden porch, they were wood flavored (pine was the best). If they hung from a gutter, they could've killed you. If they hung from a car's tailpipe... they would've killed you. But then again, you know the rules: "white and clear ain't so severe, but grey and yellow...you be an idiot." That's a lesson for the kids.

I believe it was 1994 and we got hammered by this massive snowstorm. We shoveled so much snow off the driveway that it made a really nice snow pile, nay, snow mountain, up against the fence. It got so large that my brother and I tunneled out the center and made our own snow fortress or "igloo" big enough to fit three kids. The Inuits really have the right idea because you'd be surprised how warm it is surrounded by snowpack. I remember we fashioned a little snow bench on the inside and everything. It was so cool that had I not fallen through the roof a few days later (having decided to get up on top of it), I'd like to think it could've been my first bachelor pad.

The Treasure Shell!

Here's a story I wrote for school in the 3rd grade, for which I received a well-deserved check+ and a star sticker. Because no one but me can read my chickenscratch, I'll reproduce it here for you in all its awesomeness. And just in case there's any question, please note that I copyrighted it. ;p

The Treasure Shell!
By mark  (c) October 23, 1995

Once there was a Boy, who went to the ocean. While there he explored the shore, looking for shells. He found rocks, shells, seaweed, broken glass and pennies! The pennies were old looking and leading some where. He followed the path. The pennies ended at a cave. It was very dark inside the cave. He entered slowly. It was creepy, damp, cold, and smelly. In the distance was a flicker of light!

The Boy went closer to the light. Once there, he, saw that it was from a crack in a Box. The Box was old and dusty. It had letters on the cover. Spelling "T.S." He opened the cover nervously. A blue light spurted out! So bright that it lit up the cave.

The light went down into a shape of a shell. It was standing Backwards. He picked it up. All at once he actually felt a power in the shell. The shell was the size of his hand, it had ridges on one side and smooth on the other. The color was tan and pink. It had electric power. A note said "If the magic shell did not like who touched it, the shell would zzzZAP the person". It also said "The light can blind a person." It seemed to like the Boy. So As Time whent on, he keped the shell to show others. A week later he went to the ocean. again he explored the cave.

"What a nice shell."

"I wonder what the T.S stands for in this Box?" He thought? 

Halloween Candy Hunting

I never cared much for costumes on Halloween. I remember one year wanting to go as Dr. Grant or any of the rabble of JP employees, but ended up going as a surgeon (it wasn't my idea). And no, it wasn't even a cool "diabolical surgeon" or anything, just a regular surgeon with face mask, gloves, and scrubs. I think I went as a pirate once. In other years, I think I just ran around in a black cape and top hat and tried to be... something in a black cape and top hat (probably because, no joke, I wanted to be the fucking grasshopper from James and the Giant Peach or something). Don't judge me. Remember, it was "a virgin who lit the candle" after all...

I never put that much thought into it. If I had a thing for top hats one year, that's what my costume was. What I cared more about was the candy. Oh fuck yes! Sweet sweet candy! The legal cocaine! The costume was just something I'd do so I could get at people's candy, and some years I didn't even dress up! "What are you supposed to be young man?"  "Nothing. Give me candy." I really think I had a problem. Even so, every Halloween you'd always came back with the same-old cheapo "bargain bag" variety. You always got a few handfuls of Reese's, M&Ms, and KitKats, a bunch of those Mr. Goodbars and Nestle Crunch, a solitary box of Milk Duds, and about a thousand rolls of Smarties. Usually if you dug through your bag deep enough, you might stumble on some Skittles, Laffy Taffy, Nerds, Mike & Ikes, or Dots (you know, the good stuff) but that's if you had a good night. You were almost sure to get your Mars fix though. They gave out Snickers/Milky Way/3 Musketeers/Twix minis by the bucket-load! And sometimes you'd get a few oddball throw-ins... like once (I kid you not) I got Pepperidge Farm cheese crackers. That's in the dictionary under "lame." Even razor blades stuffed inside of Snickers would be better than that!!

I was pretty much the kid in the back.

The neighborhoods you decided to hit up made all the difference in your stash, and we usually tried to hit up a few different parts of town. The housing developments were just too PC on Halloween. Everything there was pretty well lit and everyone was packing it in around 8pm. But before then it was an absolute mad scene with kids up and down the street in every direction and every house feeding their fix. It almost seemed like the holiday was only for the 5-and-under crowd though, but those were the neighborhoods with the most freakin' candy, I swear. If you wore different masks, or just covered your face, you could visit a house a few times without them even knowing it! Their front doors were like Grand Central. On a darker side street like the one I lived on, sure there was much more fun to be had in the dark and spooky bedlam of Samhain, but that was only because few had their porch lights on, so few cared whether you had a trick because they hadn't treats. Those who did, took  f o r e v e r  to answer their doorbells.

8yo me: "Trick or treat?"
Neighbor: "Oooh what are you supposed to be?"
8yo me: "I'm the one asking the questions!"

It's like, yeah yeah, hurry up grandma, make with the candy already, I got a stack of other houses to get to, and I ain't doing this for my health! Seriously, the question was "trick or treat?" Do you want to give me a treat right now and I be on my way, or do you want me to come back with toilet paper or party poppers? This is serious business. Do not jerk me around. I need sugar like Sir Mix-a-lot needs big butts. I have a problem.

Me... on candy.

And even the old ladies carrying their candy from other parts of their dang house for some reason (rather than just keeping it by the door) wouldn't have been so bad if there wasn't always such a wack of competition to fight through! I mean, you had packs of marauding 15-year-olds on bikes with nothing but a party store Michael Myers mask split between all five of them, more than likely armed with eggs and toilet paper whether they got their treats or not. I mean, come on. Go rob a gas station or something like normal teens are supposed to do, leave the candying to us kids! But at least they had the spirit of Halloween inside them. Worse were the screaming pumpkin-dressed toddlers, often being carted around in wagons and peeing themselves at the sight of anything in a mask. And yet they got the MOST candy! And they couldn't even fucking chew! Then there were the early-birds you had to contend with, those who'd already been shoo'ed away at 4pm, but who knows? The early birds could've gotten the candy worm... or a nice hard boot in the ass. And then there were the parents, usually single moms, who obviously were just using their kids as the lamest excuse possible to "get out of the house" for the evening, and who seemed to think their pumpkin-clad 2-year-olds in strollers deserved extras.

MFW I took more than one. (Or just Casper, 1995)

Is it any wonder that by the time a crazed, impatient, sugar-junkie like me shows up without a costume, a lot of those people had already had it and just ended up going "fuck off!"? Many said screw it and had already given up, just leaving their buckets of candy out on the porch in a last ditch attempt to "avoid any trouble." But in the mad pursuit of all this free candy, I was definitely tempted to ignore the "please take one" rule to my own peril, usually concerning baskets left unsupervised on doorsteps. One time when out Trick-or-Treating, I decided to take that taboo second handful on a dark and lonely doorstep, and learned my lesson for good. The psychos jumped out from behind the front door, screaming, "RAAH! ONLY TAKE ONE!!" I almost crapped myself, and almost went for the KNEECAPS! But I just ran off screaming into the night, startled beyond all reason and desperately trying to coax my shit back up my rectum. It was scary indeed. So, word to the wise: either take one, or take the whole damn basket and book it!

Mine! AHAHAHAHA!

As a result, trick or treating was actually the least cool part of Halloween. The better parts were getting to watch scary movies (Ernest Versus the Trolls freaked me the FUCK out!) while pigging out on the sweet sweet stash. And I didn't just eat it. I got freaky with it. I called it "my preciouses." I told it how naughty it was and how it had to get in my mouth as punishment! I spanked it. I rubbed it on my face. I teased it. Then I vored it like a lion on an antelope. And when it all was finally inside me, now a part of me, I'd pretend to smoke a candy cigarette and go "wow... that was.... sweeeeet." So while I was sure to regale my friends with tales of wild chases in the dark, setting off party poppers and hurling toilet paper, I never did anything like that. There was never any property damage, just a whole ton of trespassing and a sugar high that could've put me in a coma. For all I know it did.

Candy's a hell of a drug... ...