When I was nine, my mother, the former kindergarten teacher (her leaving teaching to join that math company was a blessing in disguise; I adore her, but she slaughtered all her projects. There was the time she convinced her teacher friend to get a turtle for the classroom because "I have one and the kids love it!". The turtle ate the fish's head. Just. The. Head. NEVER put them in a tank together. Then there was the tadpole catastrophe. The kids were learning about life cycles and what better way to teach them, than to let them see it for themselves? And those children learned about the cycle of life. As it turned out, one of the tadpoles was some type of cannibal; he ate some fifty tadpoles until the only thing left was one tadpole (Hopkins) and two frogs, one whom had only three legs. The only other time I saw a tadpole that fat was the time I accidentally killed my sisters eighth grade science project by feeding it too much bread... This entire paragraph is a parenthetical... now go back and read the line before the parenthetical, then skip ahead to here:), thought it would be a good idea to hatch baby chicks.
There were 48 eggs and, after weeks in that ugly yellow incubator, only ten chicks hatched. There was Dill, Phil, Lil (this ends the Rugrats portion of the naming), Gil, Neil, Jill, Cecil, Bill, Will (he was the inspirational one, first one to begin hatching, last one to finish; should have known he wouldn't make it), and Henry (My little sister's chick. She ruined the rhyme, but he died first and then order was restored). For anyone who thinks this sounds like a good idea, let me just remind you that, kids are assholes. Have you ever met a nice five year old? No, you haven't. So, after Will and Henry died because they were weak, the other eight were left to fend for themselves against the children of the corn. Lil and Neil died of love, when fat children held them too tight. The rest died overnight, probably due to internal injuries; I like to think it was peaceful though, like that old lady in Titanic who got that old because she hogged that piece of driftwood because her survival instinct was stronger than that of her male companion... obviously their survival instincts weren't very strong (the chicks, that is)... I got off topic somewhere in there.
When Bill, Phil, and Jill were the only ones left, I took Jill to share with my fourth grade peers, as she was my chick and I was proud she had outlived the competition. She was kicking ass; Until the night after my show-and-tell presentation. The next morning, I ran down the hall, my tiny Skecher clad feet scraping against the concrete, the room keys jingling in my hand, only to make it to the back of the classroom and see that Phil and Bill had trampled Jill overnight. Bastards. Shortly after that, my mother gave Phil and Bill to a friend, probably because she could sense me plotting my revenge. I don't know what happened to them, I only know that the last time I saw them, they had lost their yellow fur and were now ugly chickens (They may have been misnamed but, considering that our TMNT inspired Leo was nine before we found out we should change her name to Leah, it's not too uncommon for my family to name an animal incorrectly if an appendage is not clearly stating their sex. I honestly never even considered the fact that there were male and female turtles until that point. The only ones I saw on TV were male; Franklin, Raphael, Michelangelo, Yertle, Crush).
There were other times animals might have fucked up my life, like the time my dad called us outside to say our goodbyes to our cat after he was run over, and a gust of wind blew the sheet that was covering him two feet away. The time my friend and I got attacked by squirrels on a weekend camping trip (scariest fucking rodents ever). When my sister's cat bit my hand and gave me cat scratch fever; it's not just the title of a song. The time my sister threw me a sweet 16 surprise birthday party, and came in two minutes after the initial surprise, crying hysterically because she had hit a dog on the way home. Or the time that bear cub fell down a hill and landed ten feet in front of my sisters and I, only to be followed by mama bear and her other cub. Never have I run so fast, or left so many siblings behind...
Rather than permanently fucking me up, I like to think these experiences made me stronger. You can make fun if your childhood was normal, but mine was far more fun.
Yep, this song will do just fine to end my satyr about growing up. Hollywood-ization at its best.
- E
