Adventures From My Youth

Nothing life-changing has occurred today, so I shall regail you all with stories about my childhood.

First of all, my best friend's name was Erica. And we're still friends to this day, see?:

(Also, hello to Erica if you're reading this since I know you occasionally get on and read my blogs!)

Okay, so before I get off topic, distracted by the shiny happy picture specialness and shout-outs to friends, I will go on with my story.

When Erica and I were little, we got into all sorts of trouble; we just liked to call them adventures, though. You may remember my mention of selling hot-dogs from door to door as a five year old with a friend in my "Remember That Time" blog. That friend was most definitely Erica. To elaborate on the story, this is basically what happened:

1. Erica and I, as curious and ambitious five year olds, overhear her mom talking to some other grown up lady and she says, "I know. Hot dogs are getting SO expensive."
2. Erica turns to me, as she always does when she gets brilliant ideas, and says, "We could make a killing selling hot-dogs to people!"
3. We, being little kids, automatically decide that hot-dogs would be much more valuable if they were already microwaved, cut up, and ketchup-ed, and so prepare the hot-dogs.
4. We set out with a plate of ketchup-y hot-dog slices and attempt to sell them to her unsuspecting neighbors at an astronomically high price for what they're paying for. (Something like twenty dollars PER SLICE if I recall correctly.)
5. Mrs. Across-The-Street phones up Erica's mom to tell her what's going on and our entire business scheme is ruined.
Ah. Such good business people we made. I look back on that time as one of the happiest and most successful in my life; I wish I had that kind of stamina now to get things done at such a high rate of speed. Like, can you imagine how exciting my essays would be and how effectively they'd get written if I was still that innovative? It would be like BAM idea BAM write BAM perfect finished paper.

Erica and I also started several clubs which convened in her tool shed. We were surrounded by random gardening tools and assortments of various fruits and vegetables in jars as we pretended to discuss important items while jotting down notes in our colored, paper folders. The club evolved a few times over the years: sometimes we were "The Mystery Club"; other times "The Spy Club"; I believe our club culminated in the completely ingenious, masterly-thought-out, imaginatively and aptly named "Fun Club". And I'm not even kidding when I say I'm PRETTY sure our motto was "Fun Fun Fun". How creative. But good times were had by all in that "clubhouse".

Too bad we don't all have the attitude of children anymore...this world would be freakin' amazing if we all still had such child-like ideas and beliefs that we could easily make any of them happen in a second. Don't get me wrong, I'd still want everyone to have the intelligence and experience of an adult, just with that perfectly confident feeling of a child. We'd all do so much more stuff that we wanted to do without being so synical and discouraged about what is and is not "possible". When you're a kid, the word "impossible" is kind of impossible...it just doesn't really exist for you at all.

Wow. I really just started writing this blog post to share some funny childhood stories, but it's made me wax nostalgic and reflective; who'da thunk?

Under-Appreciated Vocabulary Word of the Day:
pristine (adj): characteristic of the earliest period; unspoiled

Random Movie Quote for Your Entertainment:
"If you were my kids, I'd PUNISH you."
"If we were your kids, we'd punish ourselves."
-Stimey in "Little Rascals"