Throw Back

I don't know what prompted these thoughts today as I was walking home, but I figured that I should share some of my favorite memories w/the world...

Sleep On It
It must've been about 1992. I was at a friend's house for a sleep over. I had a HUGE crush on her older brother and I would've done anything in the world to get his attention, but it's hard to make a high school boy fall madly in love when you look like this...



or this...


anyway...back to the story.

We were all in the living room (which happened to be right under my beloved's bedroom) with our sleeping bags and blankets talking about girl stuff and giggling. I had been quiet most of the night because being within about 100 ft of him made me nervous. Soon the girlish conversation turned to "retarded people" (middle schoolers can be so mean) and I had to say something. It was wrong to talk about people who were different and someone I loved very much was in that position!!! Quietly I said "Guys, that's not funny..." The whole room fell silent, everyone turned their heads towards me, daring me to speak. I took a breath and spoke with confidence "Y'all, my dad is retarded!" Everyone was quiet. I knew they saw my point.

"Amelia," our host said. "Your dad is RETIRED!"
"Ohh!"

The walls shook with laughter. Apparently "retired" and "retarded" are two different things and for that very reason I would never lie safely in the arms of the man who rested in the waterbed on the second floor.

Extra Cool
In middle school my neighbors were popular kids at the public school (I went to private school from pre-k to 8th grade). They had a golf cart and were nice enough to let me and my sister ride around on it with them from time to time (not sure why, because I know I wasn't cool - I was into science and math and stuff like that and I didn't cuss). Anyway, I got rollerblades for Christmas one year and practiced on them all spring so that I could be seen in the neighborhood that summer gliding around in the year's hottest trend (got a Sega Genesis that year, too. I guess the clean mouth at good grades got me in with Santa).

Finally summer came, and I was ready for my rollerblading adventure. My cool neighbors decided to take a spin in their golf cart, but I had wheels of my own. They convinced me that it would be fun for us all to ride around together using our respective modes of transportation. I agreed and off we went. And, as can be expected during a Texas summer, it was scorchingly hot...hotter than we realized when we left the house. So back home to get some food and refreshments we went, only there was one problem. We would have to climb a massive hill (it's not really all that big, but at the time it seemed huge). I was tired, hot and didn't have the energy to go up a hill of that size, there wasn't enough room on the golf cart for me to ride, so the boys suggested that I hold on to a strap attached to the back of the cart and let them pull me up. I grabbed the strap and up the hill we went with me screaming behind the cart "SLOW DOWN!! SLOW DOWN!!!". Stupidly I let go of the strap and went flying down the hill BACKWARDS. This time the screaming was louder. Finally I landed in some some old man's grass after barely missing a passing car and tumbling over the curb. How embarrassing.

The rollerblades were stolen later that summer...good riddance!!

My neighbors and I never really became friends outside of that summer either. That's probably a good thing too because I'm sure they would've teased me about the incident later. Besides that when we all got to high school they hung out with the kids who had the "cool parents" - like Regina George from "Mean Girls"