Nobody Ever Said I Had Common Sense As A Kid
Ever watch a kid doing something and instantly wish you had a DeLorean so you could travel back in time and punch yourself for doing the same thing when you were a kid? No? Just me?
Oh.
Well, I do it a lot. Every single time Alexis balances on the couch arms and swings her legs all around in the air, I hear my mother yelling at me. "GET DOWN before you break the couch!" I'd still be willing to call her bluff that anything I did would break the couch, but the fact that I could have broken my face acting like a goober is quite the revelation.
Then there's that sassy mouth thing that Alexis has going on. When she starts talking back, I feel the apple falling off of the tree and landing on my foot. On it's way down, I think the apple mutters something about "karma" and "paybacks" and "getting what you deserve." I'm not positive because I'm always too busy thinking about how I should have had my mouth sewn shut when I pulled some of the same crap.
However, perhaps my most face-slapping worthy moment came to me this past weekend as Alexis and several other neighbor kids did this:
I had completely forgotten about The Slip-n-Slide Shenanigans. Or blocked them from my memory. Whichever.
As Alexis and her friends took turns running across the yard and launching themselves down the plastic, I remembered doing the exact same thing with friends as a kid. So many things were the same. Our current neighborhood is somehow reminiscent of the neighborhood where I lived from 4th grade on. You know, if you swap out the run-down mobile homes with new 3000 square foot McMansions, but who cares about details like that? We've got the same middle-of-nowhere-yet-close-to-town thing going on, and that's what counts.
Some of Alexis' neighborhood friends are a bit older than her and some are younger. There are boys and girls, sisters and brothers, and generally just a great mix of completely dissimilar kids who manage to share a common love of fun. The same can easily be said for the kids I hung out with back in the day.
One thing that is different, however, is that we never really had a good yard for a Slip-n-Slide. They pretty much require grass, and that's something that was mostly lacking in my neighborhood. There was lots of dirt and mud and weeds, but nobody had a great lawn. And, really, you HAVE to have a decent lawn for a Slip-n-Slide.
So we improvised.
And used the Slip-n-Slide indoors.
IN. A. HOUSE. (Technically a double-wide trailer, but whatever.)
It wasn't an adult-supervised activity, obviously. It was a little something that sort of maybe kind of happened when Rhonda's parents were at work. We would roll out the Slip-n-Slide in their living room, use pitchers and cups to haul water over to it, and slide. In the living room.
I really need to go find 12-year old me and slap her for that crap.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Reader Comments (19)
Slip and Slide in the house?!?! Seriously, did we grow up in the same double-wide? Man . . . the memories ;)
@Laskigal--I never lived in a double-wide. Those were for the rich folks. ;-)
Seriously, woman? Inside? I grew up in trailers and it NEVER would have occurred to us to bring a Slip n Slide indoors. Now in college the guys made their own slip n Slides in the dorm halls using mattresses and dish soap and water ...
haha, I love it! Once, when I was in charge of my siblings and my parents were out, we took the mattresses off of our beds and wedged them in the stairwell to make a slide!
I cringe when I think about stuff like that. Both my parents worked, so by the time I was in middle school, I was pretty much the babysitter for my younger siblings after school and in the summer. The neighbor once called my mom at work to let her know that we were jumping off the roof of the house into the pool in the backyard. My parents still live there and when we'll go over so my kids can swim, I look at that roof and cringe. I can't believe we were so stupid. Even worse?? A couple of weeks ago, my dad thought it would be hilarious to tell this story to my kids, presumably to make them aware of the fact that mom did stupid stuff too and how dangerous it was. But of course, my 8-year old's eyes lit up and he asked "can I try it?" Ummmm, not now, not ever. Thanks, Dad. Karma sucks.
No freaking way! Are you serious? In the house???? Sassy!
I used to be a pretty adventurous youngster and everytime I see my boys getting wild on the playground I thank GOD that they do not walk on top of the monkey bars like their mama used to do. I did some really stupid stuff. If I saw my kids do it I'd have a heart attack.
bwahahahaha.... oh my. This makes me cringe, because we definitely did stuff like that. I know that paybacks are a bitch, and I'm DREADING mine!
You know, I think you and my youngest brother must have been separated at birth. Really.
Oh yeah. The view from the adult side is completely different. Even as my 20 yo son does what 20 year olds do, I cringe. I wish he didn't need to experience certain things to learn. I wish he could do it better and smarter than I did, when I did the same things when I was his age. No one really explains how painful parenting can be to a mommy's heart and mind....
I love that story! My dad told me about getting even with the mean guy in his neighborhood when he was a kid by turning on a hose and sticking it into his basement window well. His big brother defended him fiercely and then my dad told him he did it. Nice.
So many of your posts make me want to write my own copycat post (but I don't want to be a copycat). This one, especially, because I did some SPECTACULARLY stupid things as a kid.
@Gina--You can't NOT tell me about the stupid stuff you did after that. WRITE THE POSTS!
Hey, doing that in a house is no different than any frat house party...
Oh, wait...now I see your point.
Huh.
Then again, I'm the stupid dope that cracked her tailbone on a slip and slide...I don't care for them these days...wonder why??
My sister and I shared a bedroom that had that really cheap, comes from the factory slippy, linoeum. The slippy increased exponentially the day we realized that when Mom handed us the can of Pledge and told us to dust....the overspray (there's ALWAYS accidental overspray, isn't there?)could be buffed to a high sheen...and with properly anal-Mom alignment of the beds, there was literally very little effort to "jump into bed"
The fun ended the day Mom almost broke a hip when entering the room in her sock like slippers. The happy ending comes when she informed us we would no longer be allowed to dust our bedroom.
If it makes you feel better, my friends and I would do that on the linoleum in the kitchen with realllllly long slidey socks on and hideous (but slippery) pajamas. I have no idea how we never killed ourselves or how in the world we could slide so far ON THE FRICKIN FLOOR, but hot damn we thought it was the most fun evah!
thanks for the instant memories of dumping buckets of soapy water on the kitchen floor after typing huge sponges to my feet. i had great fun "cleaning" that floor. thankfully my mom thought it was a brilliant idea and didn't beat me when the tiles started popping up. i think she was happy my dad had to put down a new floor!
oh...and we also poured water on the back deck in the winter so it would freeze. then we would put on roller skates for a game of last man standing. did i mention the back deck was a second story deck? amazing i survived to almost 40.
p.s. don't go back and punch your younger self. you wouldn't be the awesome michelle that you are if you changed some things.
Best story ever. And one which I will never tell my kids.