askchapo

Earliest memory is of getting scared by a Garfield clock in my crib

Mid September, 2001. I asked my dad if "everyone is sad about 9/11" includes the cows in the field. He looked at me and said yes, even the cows are sad.

I got sad when I was 4 because girls were made out sugar, spice, and everything nice and I really wanted to be made out of something nice

seeing my mom's used maxi pads in the trash and calling 911

I remember some kids stopped bullying me in third grade because they learned I could draw dinosaurs pretty well

I took a sip of my own piss because the doctor had me pee in a cup during an appointment. I had no concept of urinalysis and just assumed he was thirsty, leaving me with the question "well does it taste good?"

I think I was four at the time.

Regularly played soccer in the parking lot with a few friends and one of their dads. The dad would play us 3v1 and say that if we won, he'd buy us each a pack of Pokemon cards. He let us win, but we didn't know. He offered us triple or nothing. We took the bet, and he hustled us and told us not to be greedy and press our luck.

Renting video games and movies at the local version of Blockbuster, and then watching all those stores shut down as internet access became widespread. I still remember the store, crappy red carpet included. They even tried Blu Ray rentals, including a Blu Ray player or PS3 rental, as a last ditch effort to stay in business, but went bust anyways.

Also remember riding my bicycle up the steepest hill in history as a five year old. Went back to that hill as an adult decades later. It actually barely was a hill, I was just a weak and small five year old.

being eight-ish years old, bouncing on my parents bed while eating marshmallows. I decided to start throwing marshmallows into the light fixture while It was on, of course. My mom found me on the bed, halfway through my jump shot and just about beat the brakes off my ass, with her flip flop. Afterwards I had to help remove the fixture, clean the caramelized sugar off of it, and then reinstall it. The whole time, tears just running like a river.

One time I was at my great grandmothers house visiting family I had never met (I was five or six). My great grandma lived out in the boonies in north Mississippi with no electricity, no running water, outhouse on the edge of the property that moved locations once its current spot had no more room. She had a cuckoo clock in the hallway and I was afraid of it. I remember sneaking down the hallway where it was, and when it went off I screamed and started crying. I remember telling my mom that her Uncle Erskin and her Uncle Claud both beat me. I remember her uncle Claude calling me a derogatory term from the late 1800s, used to demean black men particularly. It took me 30 years to remember the term correctly, and then look it up to see wtf it was. Fuck you Claud. Greatest Generation my ass.

I remember not being able to convince my mom to let me have ice cream for dinner so I held my breath till I nearly lost consciousness, fell down and cracked the back of my skull hard enough that I got mildly concussed and had to get a half dozen stitches on my head to fix it. I don’t remember how old I was then, but I’m 46 now and I can still feel the scar on the back of my head.

stapled my thumb through the thumbnail on the last day of school because I thought it was unset and I pushed up on the staple hole (attempt at Good Samaritan behavior) (it was a curved-back stapler)

My cousins introducing me to Dragon Ball when I was 5.

At an arcade for a friend's birthday, my dad told me and my friend that if anyone made fun of friend's brother's condition, we could beat the shit out of them and he wouldn't tell anyone.

My Dad sent our cat down my childhood slide

Opening a new savings account after a family move (back then, people encouraged children to save their pocket money to teach the value of thrift)

I mentioned to the banker were I had had an account in the old city, and he told me that they were in a lot of trouble. It was part of the Savings and Loan fiasco of the late 1980s.

Autumn of 1969, sending encrypted letters to the Chronicle.

I saw my mother naked at 7yo so I started crying and pretended to have fainted (because I saw that in a cartoon), then my grandpa told me I will see more naked women in the future while laughing

I stepped on one of my mom's pin cushions as we were watching a movie

making an ant village out of sticks at my summer camp and genuinely being distraught when it collapsed after it rained

I think i stole every game manual from every game i rented when i was young

got interviewed in a bulk thing and my vibes were so immaculate the newscasters commented on me specifically after-action

as a child i went to pick up what i thought was a pinecone but was in fact a very big slug (it was dark out). i screamed and then my grandpa laughed at me. where i live now i only ever see tiny slugs sometimes.

had a similar situation with what i thought was a rubber snake toy. i scared the poor snake so bad picking it up so quickly. I can't blame this one on it being dark out as it was in broad daylight

Me and my friends throwing a giant dildo on top of the roof my friends house, we never retrieved it

My dad's red pickup truck burned up in the driveway.

I actually cried about it and had nightmares. It was fine, really, no one was hurt and the truck was old. It caught on fire because my dad was burning ditches and his gas tank had a tiny leak. He made it home fine, didn't get burned at all, but the truck burned quite a lot, it was quite charred and my young self was pretty freaked out.

Watching an apartment complex engulfed in flames from the balcony of our own apartment across the street/a block away (can't remember exactly how far away it was)

Bouncing a recently sharpened pencil up and down on my desk and suddenly getting stabbed by that pencil and the tip broke off in my hand under my skin (I never got it out)

Shoplifting 3-packs of Bic lighters, then throwing them at a concrete barrier to make them explode. Broad daylight, alone.

Watching the important videos Playlist on the tv, it somehow cutting out to an impractical jokers episode and we kept watching it for like 5 minutes waiting for the joke

burning trash on the trash pile

a small firecracker exploding in my hand

winning handily at checkers against someone sober while I was tripping pretty hard

having to pull a car out of a ditch after the driver puked on themself after taking a big hit off a fat joint I rolled

my dad (trying to advocate for me) having a 4-hour long conversation with a teacher about my accommodations that played out like when a chatbot gets caught in a dead-end and refuses to iterate

some fuckass game on the ps2 that was not spyro (nor ape escape as I vividly remember playing that) that was a collectathon (I genuinely can't remember any further even though I've scoured through my dads old stuff)

Driving over a big bridge and my sister opened the car door

Tying star wars action figures to the ceiling fan with fishing line and turning it on.

Those things would be worth a fortune today