Chapter 1- Speech impediments & my first love.

My friends always wonder how I remember so much crap. I must say, I have a great long-term memory. My short term is not so great, but whatever. Most people don’t remember lots from growing up.. but not me. I remember every nasty hot lunch I got..i remember getting yelled at by the yard duty when I wiped banana on my friends pants..i remember forgetting my ruler and sitting on the red bench at recess…I remember way way way too much.

So? i thought i'd jot down all the crap i remembered, just for kicks and giggles.

Chapter 1: The early years.

Pre-school. I was a skinny kid clad in green biker shorts and over-sized hand me down mickey mouse tee shirts.  Though dressed like an orphan with a bad haircut, I was adorable because I still had darling mini baby teeth. (It is a known fact that kids get annoying when their adult teeth come in all skeewompis and rigid, and it automatically changes their ‘cuteness’ into ‘obnoxious’ and then into ‘stop spitting on me and shut your mouth’ when they get braces and can’t talk like a human.

Back to cute me. I also had a marvelous speech impediment..which made me sound like I was deaf and possibly born in another country. My sisters can attest to this. Not being able to say my ‘R’s made watching ‘Weading Wainbow’ QUITE difficult when my mother couldn’t figure out the channel I wanted her to put on. (I’d sit in my baby sisters car seat and eat granola bars in front of our 12 channel 13 inch tv.  Yes, I was living the American dream, I was a speech-impediment-stricken-child  and loved rocking in an infant car seat at the tender age of 4). I dreamed of being a guest star on ‘don’t take my word for it…’ where obnoxious children in outdated sweaters would talk about their favorite kid's books. I believed I could memorize those lines better than any of those bi-racial kids.  I desperately wanted to meet Lavar Burton. And, I desperately wanted to be a star.

My speech impediment also hindered my eating habits, which caused both frustration and comic relief to my family, which pissed me right off. When I begged for ‘Waagnts and Cwaghas’ my father didn’t understand this as a type of food, but probably wondered if a gene mutation was surfacing after 4 years of somewhat normalcy. All I wanted was ‘ranch and crackers’ and wondered why my father couldn’t hear me, and I worried for his sanity. Also? only knowing how to say your 'j's like 'd's makes it very hard to yell to your mom a room is jammed and hot and really sweaty and I needed to go home, which came out as ‘dammed ahn haughnt ah wealley swea-hee ahn I neehee to go hoghem.’ (Note to future children: I will send you to resource if you talk like a moron. I don’t care if you  miss recess, you will not talk like a moron.)

Saving my mothers sanity, she sent me to preschool at the ghetto local community center for half the day where I begged for extra homework from miss Lisa and fell in love with the first dreamy boy I’d ever met. Matthew Frankenstein.  Yes, that was his real name. No he did not look like a green corpse, but had beautiful black hair and an adorable freckle on his cheek.(That was the beginning of pairing my first name with my love's last. My parents should have taken this as a forewarning and been prepared for my teenage dating years. Had I been able to write? All over my preschool drawings would have been doodles of ‘Nicole Frankenstein’ with little hearts dotting the I’s) OH how I swooned at him and how I strategically invited him into my fort to take him away from all the other desperate girls in my class for stolen romantic moments under the counter during play time.

A downfall of this new found love, was curiosity. Something I’m deeply ashamed of… I could not exactly figure out the difference between boys and girls. So naturally, I invited my darling Matthew into the bathroom with me to use to toilet next to me, so I could figure out why boys pee standing up, and why girls sit down. (the preschool toilets obviously didn’t value 4 year old privacy, so there were NO dividers in between the squat stations. Scary, but intriguing. I blame them for my curiosity). Matthew refused the offer telling me he didn’t need to go, and I think I was slightly relieved because I'm pretty sure my 4 year old self had to go #2. So, it took me until kindergarten to understand the difference between boys and girls, when Max Broun explained to me things I think I’ve blocked out of my memory.( All I remember from that day was him coming out of the bathroom and after our conversation, he ate a handful of chunky paste and I told on him) So, was it curiosity or a precursor to turning into a female pervert? I am ashamed.

Next up: The worst day of my 4 year old life.