Laundry Day: Imaginary friends were the only kind that understood me

And now your second installment of Laundry Day (I told you it wouldn’t come every week):



 I had two imaginary friends when I was five. They were boys and they were my sons and they lived in my closet. One of their names was Michael and I can’t remember the other one’s name. I guess Michael was my favorite and I blocked the other one out? My mom remembers their names. It’s her go-to story whenever she wants to embarrass the shit out of me. That and telling people I didn’t learn to walk until I was 18 months old. Thanks, mom! Anyhoo, let me check with mom:

“You had two imaginary friends, Michael and Jimmy and they lived in your closet. You set things up for them in there like it was their room. And when they were bad, you would lock them in.”

“So I was a really weird kid is what you are saying?”

”No, not especially. All kids have imaginary friends, you just had two of them that were somewhat ill-behaved. You had a wild imagination a lot of the time...Make sure you tell everyone on your blog that you used to poop your pants while you were hiding under the dining room table! ” *laughs hysterically*

My gaze tells me I am showing off in front of my imaginary sons

Thanks, mom…So mom can embarrass me but she must remember that embarrassment is a two-way street:

I went to Sky View for kindergarten. Christy and I went to the same school but for some reason the kindergarten was closed one day but the grade school was open. So Christy had to go, but I did not. They didn’t even send a note home about this which is crazy, right? They trusted five-year-olds to tell their parents they didn’t have school and they trusted the parents to actually believe their children. Mine did not.

Mom brought me to kindergarten that day after I swore (yeah, I was swearing at five, what up?) up and down that I didn’t have school that day. She didn’t believe me (what parent would?) so she dropped me off in front of the kindergarten. My sister has always been a pretty solid protector so she would always walk me to the door of the kindergarten building. This morning when she tried to open the door, it was locked. I told. You so.

She was a great sister but I don't like the look in her eyes here

Mom was driving away in her snazzy two-door Buick at the time so Christy and I had to run out to the street to flag her down to come back and get me, her honest, trustworthy five-year-old. We caught her, thankfully, and she has been apologizing for that ever since. And boy was her face red when she saw that every single other parent trusted their child and didn’t bring them to school that day. Ha! You would think she would have learned to listen to me from that, she didn’t…

Back in the day when I went to church, a missionary came to speak and she picked me to bring me up on stage and measure my arm. More than likely to measure how large a healthy child’s arm should be and compare it to children of starving countries. Makes sense, yes? Not to me it didn’t. I thought she was going to cut my arm off. Seriously. I thought she was going to sacrifice my right arm to god for some reason and I was terrified as any small child should be when they find out their arm is about to be cut off. Naturally, I couldn’t stop crying.

I was a very shy kid when I was little so mom thought I was just nervous about going up in front of everyone. I was bawling my eyes out in fear of losing an appendage and mom was baffled at to what my problem was. I tried explaining but I couldn’t get the words out over my uncontrollable sobs. My crying grew worse as the time approached so mom had to take me into the restroom, sit me down, and tell me to cut the shit (she would never) it wasn’t that big of a deal and to calm it down. I am also pretty sure I got a spanking* for my ridiculous crying.

I was inconsolable so the missionary chose someone else to cut off their arm and I was relieved to say the least that some other poor schmuck was giving their arm to Jesus. Better them than me. When I finally calmed down I told mom what I thought the missionary was going to do and, immediately, she felt horrible about the whole misunderstanding.  Of course I was crying, mom. DUH!

I cried uncontrollably a lot back in the day so I shouldn’t be at all surprised that she thought I was overreacting. The only photographic evidence I can find is this from my kindergarten graduation:

I am told I cried throughout the whole thing. Couldn’t tell you why. I do know that I am still tormented about my crying jags to this day. No one knows what the hell was wrong with me at kindergarten graduation and, really, no one knows what the hell is wrong with me now. I like to keep people guessing you see.

Next up on Laundry Day; Grandparents…those magnificent bastards.

*To this day I will never understand why parents spank their children to get them to stop crying. Does that not seem counterproductive? And kind of crazy?

Laundry Day: *expletive deleted* another girl!

I am just going to begin at the beginning. This is also kind of tough to piece things together in a cohesive manner when remembering things randomly so I am going to try and do snippets here and there on one subject that I can remember at a time.

That's a sweet-ass blouse you got on there, mom

My dad was the forerunner of the trucker hat phenomenon

Oh rusty 70's swingset, you so crazy

There is obviously a lot about early childhood that most kids don’t remember because…well, they’re small children at the time. Quite a few things are hazy so that is why I called up my mom to ask her a few questions and I’ll be damned if her memory isn’t as bad as mine.  

I am the youngest of two girls. My sister, Christy, is four years older than I am. Dad always wanted a boy, which most men do (right?) so when my mom got pregnant the second time he had his hopes up that this one was a boy. When the doctor found out that I wasn’t a boy, he wouldn’t tell dad that he was getting yet another daughter.

So mom goes into labor, dad is still hoping that it is a boy and BAM. I come out and I am a girl. If I am remembering the story correctly, dad’s first words after I was born were, “Shit, it’s another girl!” Thanks dad!

My sister and I still say that if Dad had ever had a boy, he would have been eaten out of house and home. I think everything worked out well, personally. And now dad has two grandsons that he can live out all those cool things he wanted to do with a son when all he got were two (admittedly girly) girls. I don’t think he would trade us now, but back then I am not so sure.

Still bummed I don't still have that sweet Radio Flyer

The first house I ever lived in was in Frayser. We moved from there when I was five, so I remember very little but Christy has better memories as she lived there until she was nine, no one should be surprised that her memories of that house have to do with her being in trouble: 

“The Frayser house made a big circle so whenever you got into trouble you could run around that circle and dad would have to chase you. He would be mad at first chasing around his kid who just got in trouble but after a few laps he would start laughing and thats usually how I avoided punishment.”

I never got punished when I was a little because I was an excellent child. Seriously. Christy? Not so much. So basically anything I did would pale in comparison to whatever atrocity that she committed previously. Thanks for paving the way, sis! You broke mom and dad in real nice-like! I rode that gravy train until well after high school. They had seen it all before I got the chance to act a fool so by the time I did anything stupid or worthy of their shame and disappointment, they were pretty numb to it by that time. Ahhh, the joys of being the youngest…



Orange Shag Carpeting, represent



For the most part, I remember Christy being a pretty solid big sister (and she still is). We fought like most siblings do but she tried her damnedest to watch out for me. And we may be complete opposites now but we weren’t always. 

When we were little, both Christy and I loved to perform.  As I mentioned before, my dad played the drums in a hony-tonk band* every Saturday night. To psych himself up for his “gig” he would play the songs at high volume that he would be performing later that night. My sister and I took this time to dance our faces off.

We would start out in the hallway and as the music would begin we would run out into an imaginary sea of our adoring fans and then we would bust all kind of moves, whatever sort of moves can be busted with a toddler and a small child shaking it to Bob Seger. I think we just jumped a lot. And our big “trick” was to jump off the ottoman. That was our big finish.



Yes, that ottoman. I am also pretty sure that is one of my moves.



We also performed on the fireplace as though it were a stage

*I shot dad a text this morning to ask the name of the band. Not that it matters but someone out there might like to actually know what the band’s name was, I don’t know??? Here is how that text exchange when down:

“So what was the name of the band you played in?"

“Witch one?” (Yes, that is how he spelled it)

“I don’t know. Was there a main one?”

“I was in demand by many bands.” (Do you see where I get it now?)

Through a few more unnecessary texts, I finally got it out of him that the name of the band was, they didn’t have a name. He played for the house band at the Harvester Country Show in Frayser. If I can find pictures of this band, they will be scanned in and shown to you. I know I have seen pictures from it and the chicks wore a lot of bold colored metallic spandex. It’s a sight to see. Also a sight to see: My dad’s rockin’ comb-over and mutton chops.

Next week on Laundry Day: Imaginary Friends…my face is red now just thinking about it…

Laundry Day: I do it for the fans...



Stacey. What up?!

People tell me that I should be a writer. Okay. That is all well and good, but come on. I am not the best writer. We all know this. There is no way I will be famous or well known or even regarded for writing, but it is something I enjoy and I want to be better at it and that is what I try and do with this blog. I am not winning any awards here but I entertain myself and a few other people and that is more than enough for me.

In every creative writing class I have been in, they teach you to write what you know. It’s the best story-telling practice and you find that you can stem something else from it. I write a lot about myself here already but that’s more of the day to day. But what do you really know about me besides; boobs, candy, Halloween, hatred of cereal milk, detests Jersey Shore and I read a good amount of books? Not a whole lot.

Like did you know that my dad played drums in a honky-tonk band for years? Or that I catered weddings when I was 10-years-old? Or that my sister ran over my foot with her bike on purpose? Or that I once did a mock radio show that was all captured on tape when I was 12? I bet you didn’t…which brings me to a new column titled...

Laundry Day* - tah dahhhh!              

It is going to be exactly what you think it’s going to be. Airing my laundry and not just dirty laundry but the clean stuff that’s been moth balled and put away for a while. I am putting it all out there for the world to see. I get asked a lot where did I come from meaning; “How did you come from this family???” Maybe we will find out, who knows? There is a world of possibilities with this.    

I will try and post every Thursday but these may take some time and a lot of thinking and a lot of picture scanning (damn you time period before digital cameras!) so it may take longer than a week to come up with them which is why Laundry Day is so appropriate…

I do laundry, seriously, once every three weeks, maybe.  It’s only me and I don’t have an entire loads worth of laundry for a while. It’s less than that in the winter when clothes take up more space and it is a lot longer than that in summer. I can go at least a month in summer. So this column may or may not appear every week. A week may be skipped here and there but they will come around often.

A few words of warning: Some of you WILL appear in these. I won’t speak ill of you, I won’t divulge anything incriminating and I won’t use anyone’s last names. I would also be glad to change your name completely if you’d like. Also if any you of plan on being president, I need to know now so I can prepare to be supa famous when this blog is uncovered in 30 years.

Laundry Day will include childhood crushes (real and celebrity, and with the exception of the ones I would rather not own up to, they probably know who they are and I would rather not relive that shit), middle school, high school, stupid high school bullshit that I was involved in for some reason though I think I kept drama free for the most part, but not all together. College (Crazy Dorm Night, WHAT?!). My time living in the dorms. All kinds of shit. Every story I have (most of them, some of them should never be told) I will share. If I think you may care if this shit gets out about you, I will let you know beforehand. But I promise, to those of my friends and family out there I won’t air your laundry out, I swear. It’s just about me. And to my family, I promise not to shame you all too badly.  

As for those people that I don’t really care about either way, I can’t say you won’t be shown in a somewhat unflattering light. There is a reason I don’t like you... I’m just saying, and that may or may not come out, but names will be changed to protect the innocent (me).

           

Now I want no one to forget that all the old emails and stuff I used to send out back in the day...I kept them. All. So you may be seeing repeats of those as well of our stories. They should be nothing short of hilarious (Before there were blogs, I wrote emails to my friends. Long emails. And they started in 2000...when I was 19. It should be good stuff, my 19^th birthday, anyone? Anyone?). Prepare yourselves.         



Skeptical Daniel is skeptical

And now for the really exciting part: Daniel is going to join me! Hurrah! Lots of you don’t know who Daniel is. We used to work together (yes, I will be hashing out work stories, i.e. Ellie Mae, my time in the warehouse, etc.) and we have remained friends. He is really cool and he is also a writerish type person like me so I shot him the idea, he liked it and agreed to do it with me. So you get to find out everything about me and Daniel. How excited are you right now? I know, I know. I am too.                        



Why am I choking Daniel? Will the world ever know?

So now every Thursday (sort of) you have Laundry Day to look forward to. You will get to know everything there is to know about the two most talented writers on this blog (read: The only two writers on this blog). And Daniel and I will get much needed writing practice for our eventual live of fame and fortune. Everyone is welcome. Seriously, you are all so welcome. Stop thanking me, you’re embarrassing me.



Daniel isn't really a ninja...or is he? Tune in to find out!

*Daniel came up with the title, I take no credit.