let's see who still wants to be friends with me after this
Idea stolen from hopeandmemory! I'm afraid these facts make me sound like a terrifying child but they're the more interesting aspects of my childhood. I wasn't always being this scary, I swear! Anyway,
1. I found a dead body once. This story is not going to be as exciting as that first sentence suggests, though, so if you're looking for a thriller you better skip this one. In the apartment complex we lived in until I was 10/11-ish, there was an old woman who used to give me quarters whenever she saw me riding my little tricycle around the lot in the back of the building. I was about four or five when this happened, by the way. Anyway, I was out there riding my bike and I saw her lying down next to her car with the door open, and I just kind of pedaled around her for a while waiting for my quarter. She never moved so I left her that way and went up for dinner a little while later. After I ate I looked out the window in the kitchen and remarked, "Oh, she's still there." That's when my dad looked out the window and saw the lady, and he called an ambulance. She had died of a heart attack though, so I never got to be a witness in a murder trial or anything. Yet.
2. When I was in second grade there were a couple boys who I had crushes on and I did not take no for an answer. I would viciously chase these boys down on the playground until I'd cornered them, then I would kiss them and run away. Apparently they liked it because on my birthday they all brought in presents, one of them even brought me chocolate!
3. I was generally considered a very combative, aggressive child and that's basically because I was. My first detention was in second grade for saying "for fuck's sake" during a math lesson, and after that I was in detention a lot of the time. I would kick, scratch, and bite other kids for no particular reason, especially Zack. I think at least 2/3 of my detentions were from chasing and scratching him. It was funny because he cried. He still has a scar or two, I recall.
4. Despite being pretty mean, I still managed to be the ringleader of a lot of epic games on the playground. In third grade I managed to corral half my class into doing worksheets that I made and handed out that would certify them to be ghost hunters, and I would take them home and grade them. Eventually everyone passed and I led my very own ghost hunting team. We peeled irregular globs of paint off the stairs of the school because they were ectoplasm and kept elaborate case files of every ghost we hunted. I made up all the stories of course, but I still managed to be terrified of my made-up ghosts. Next year, in fourth grade, everyone was obsessed with dinosaur shaped erasers, but the problem was that the arms and legs of the erasers were always breaking off. I opened up an eraser hospital inside my desk and charged kids a quarter to mend their dinosaurs, which I did by breaking off pieces of paper clip and using it as a "bone" to stick the limb back onto the dinosaur, reinforced by some glue. I even made up little envelopes of "medicine" made out of eraser shavings for them. Also in fourth grade I had a newsletter about my cat that I mailed to kids in my class. I wish I was joking. There were many more games and things I initiated, including a townwide game of cannibal indians that the school ended up sending a newsletter home about saying it was banned, but I could be here forever if I list all the shit I came up with.
5. But I do have to talk about being the class storyteller. Sometime during fourth grade I started telling scary stories on the playground to anyone who would gather around my little corner, which was my corner because there was a honeysuckle bush there. (I also taught everyone how to eat honeysuckle, and if any of you HAVEN'T eaten honeysuckle, we seriously need to have a conversation because you are missing out.) Anyway, I had a few regulars who came to every storytelling, and then the other kids came and went when they were in the mood to be scared. I made up a lot of the stories on the spot, others were urban legends and ghost stories I'd read or heard here and there. This all became really popular and it had the added consequence of parents telling their children they weren't allowed to hang out with me because I creeped them out. Plus, parents often called my mom in a rage because their kids couldn't sleep at night thanks to storytime with Cristal. Even though parents weren't fond of me, I was a regular fixture at sleepover parties because I would read people's palms and tarot cards and tell the best scary stories. But you could bet if I was invited, no one would be sleeping that night.
6. This brings to mind two instances where I scared the living hell out of a big handful of my classmates. The first was during a slumber party when I told them stories about Bloody Mary and got everyone so testicle-shrinkingly terrified that I kind of felt bad and told them that we would be safe if we drew a circle around the entire house in sidewalk chalk and put salt in our mouths when we went into the bathroom so she couldn't jump down our throats and possess us. Still, I couldn't help continuing to fan the flames (I seriously enjoyed their fear), and once night fell I told more stories that made the girls scream so much that the cops came. In fifth grade I had a Halloween party with a scavenger hunt in my back yard at night, and beforehand I told my mom's friend's son (who was around 14 I think?) to scare us. He took that very literally and showed up with a really grotesque wolf mask on and an ACTUAL FLAMING TORCH and chased us all around the house. One girl had asthma and started having a really bad asthma attack, it was crazy pandemonium, and of course the cops showed up after like five minutes.
7. The first time I got to third base was in fifth grade. I'm not going to elaborate on that really because I'm sure no one wants the details, but I was a really sex-obsessed child. I was not molested or mistreated in any way that would make me so interested in it (isn't that what they always say when kids are interested in sex? They must be traumatized!) I just thought it was awesome.
8. I was not really wild or anything, I tried not to do things that would get me in trouble with adults because when an adult even said one stern word to me I started crying. I remember the ridiculous gut-churning fear I had when I made out with a boy on the monkeybars outside the school at night in seventh grade, and the next day he was called down to the office during class. I was convinced we had somehow been caught even though it had been around ten o'clock at night, and he totally knew I was scared of that because after school I asked him what he got called down for and he looked at me really seriously and said that the principal saw us on the security cameras in the playground and his was the only face they could make out. He was joking and there were no security cameras, but I seriously almost passed out from fear.
9. I used to manipulate my babysitters into giving me candy or letting me go outside at night when I was around six or seven, just so I could tell my mother they let me do it as soon as she got home. I'm not sure exactly why I did this, it wasn't because I didn't like them. I'm not even going to try to psychoanalyze it.
10. When my sister was born, I hated her. As she got older I just hated her more and more, and we used to fight viciously. We drew blood. It calmed down pretty fast, though. By the time I was in fifth grade I didn't hate her anymore, and these days I like her pretty much a whole lot. But when I did hate her, I used to draw on furniture and destroy my mom's makeup and blame it on her to try to get her thrown away. When we made our first confessions in church (my mom made me go to "Sunday school" just because all the other kids in town went and it was taboo not to go) I told the priest that I'd used my mom's makeup on my sister and blamed her for it. I never did do those Hail Mary's he told me I needed to do...
1. I found a dead body once. This story is not going to be as exciting as that first sentence suggests, though, so if you're looking for a thriller you better skip this one. In the apartment complex we lived in until I was 10/11-ish, there was an old woman who used to give me quarters whenever she saw me riding my little tricycle around the lot in the back of the building. I was about four or five when this happened, by the way. Anyway, I was out there riding my bike and I saw her lying down next to her car with the door open, and I just kind of pedaled around her for a while waiting for my quarter. She never moved so I left her that way and went up for dinner a little while later. After I ate I looked out the window in the kitchen and remarked, "Oh, she's still there." That's when my dad looked out the window and saw the lady, and he called an ambulance. She had died of a heart attack though, so I never got to be a witness in a murder trial or anything. Yet.
2. When I was in second grade there were a couple boys who I had crushes on and I did not take no for an answer. I would viciously chase these boys down on the playground until I'd cornered them, then I would kiss them and run away. Apparently they liked it because on my birthday they all brought in presents, one of them even brought me chocolate!
3. I was generally considered a very combative, aggressive child and that's basically because I was. My first detention was in second grade for saying "for fuck's sake" during a math lesson, and after that I was in detention a lot of the time. I would kick, scratch, and bite other kids for no particular reason, especially Zack. I think at least 2/3 of my detentions were from chasing and scratching him. It was funny because he cried. He still has a scar or two, I recall.
4. Despite being pretty mean, I still managed to be the ringleader of a lot of epic games on the playground. In third grade I managed to corral half my class into doing worksheets that I made and handed out that would certify them to be ghost hunters, and I would take them home and grade them. Eventually everyone passed and I led my very own ghost hunting team. We peeled irregular globs of paint off the stairs of the school because they were ectoplasm and kept elaborate case files of every ghost we hunted. I made up all the stories of course, but I still managed to be terrified of my made-up ghosts. Next year, in fourth grade, everyone was obsessed with dinosaur shaped erasers, but the problem was that the arms and legs of the erasers were always breaking off. I opened up an eraser hospital inside my desk and charged kids a quarter to mend their dinosaurs, which I did by breaking off pieces of paper clip and using it as a "bone" to stick the limb back onto the dinosaur, reinforced by some glue. I even made up little envelopes of "medicine" made out of eraser shavings for them. Also in fourth grade I had a newsletter about my cat that I mailed to kids in my class. I wish I was joking. There were many more games and things I initiated, including a townwide game of cannibal indians that the school ended up sending a newsletter home about saying it was banned, but I could be here forever if I list all the shit I came up with.
5. But I do have to talk about being the class storyteller. Sometime during fourth grade I started telling scary stories on the playground to anyone who would gather around my little corner, which was my corner because there was a honeysuckle bush there. (I also taught everyone how to eat honeysuckle, and if any of you HAVEN'T eaten honeysuckle, we seriously need to have a conversation because you are missing out.) Anyway, I had a few regulars who came to every storytelling, and then the other kids came and went when they were in the mood to be scared. I made up a lot of the stories on the spot, others were urban legends and ghost stories I'd read or heard here and there. This all became really popular and it had the added consequence of parents telling their children they weren't allowed to hang out with me because I creeped them out. Plus, parents often called my mom in a rage because their kids couldn't sleep at night thanks to storytime with Cristal. Even though parents weren't fond of me, I was a regular fixture at sleepover parties because I would read people's palms and tarot cards and tell the best scary stories. But you could bet if I was invited, no one would be sleeping that night.
6. This brings to mind two instances where I scared the living hell out of a big handful of my classmates. The first was during a slumber party when I told them stories about Bloody Mary and got everyone so testicle-shrinkingly terrified that I kind of felt bad and told them that we would be safe if we drew a circle around the entire house in sidewalk chalk and put salt in our mouths when we went into the bathroom so she couldn't jump down our throats and possess us. Still, I couldn't help continuing to fan the flames (I seriously enjoyed their fear), and once night fell I told more stories that made the girls scream so much that the cops came. In fifth grade I had a Halloween party with a scavenger hunt in my back yard at night, and beforehand I told my mom's friend's son (who was around 14 I think?) to scare us. He took that very literally and showed up with a really grotesque wolf mask on and an ACTUAL FLAMING TORCH and chased us all around the house. One girl had asthma and started having a really bad asthma attack, it was crazy pandemonium, and of course the cops showed up after like five minutes.
7. The first time I got to third base was in fifth grade. I'm not going to elaborate on that really because I'm sure no one wants the details, but I was a really sex-obsessed child. I was not molested or mistreated in any way that would make me so interested in it (isn't that what they always say when kids are interested in sex? They must be traumatized!) I just thought it was awesome.
8. I was not really wild or anything, I tried not to do things that would get me in trouble with adults because when an adult even said one stern word to me I started crying. I remember the ridiculous gut-churning fear I had when I made out with a boy on the monkeybars outside the school at night in seventh grade, and the next day he was called down to the office during class. I was convinced we had somehow been caught even though it had been around ten o'clock at night, and he totally knew I was scared of that because after school I asked him what he got called down for and he looked at me really seriously and said that the principal saw us on the security cameras in the playground and his was the only face they could make out. He was joking and there were no security cameras, but I seriously almost passed out from fear.
9. I used to manipulate my babysitters into giving me candy or letting me go outside at night when I was around six or seven, just so I could tell my mother they let me do it as soon as she got home. I'm not sure exactly why I did this, it wasn't because I didn't like them. I'm not even going to try to psychoanalyze it.
10. When my sister was born, I hated her. As she got older I just hated her more and more, and we used to fight viciously. We drew blood. It calmed down pretty fast, though. By the time I was in fifth grade I didn't hate her anymore, and these days I like her pretty much a whole lot. But when I did hate her, I used to draw on furniture and destroy my mom's makeup and blame it on her to try to get her thrown away. When we made our first confessions in church (my mom made me go to "Sunday school" just because all the other kids in town went and it was taboo not to go) I told the priest that I'd used my mom's makeup on my sister and blamed her for it. I never did do those Hail Mary's he told me I needed to do...