Since I am still homeless (we move in tomorrow night!!!!!) I haven't been doing a whole lot of exciting things lately unless you consider watching the entire series of Freaks and Geeks on Netflix exciting (stop making that face, there are only 18 episodes). "So what will this post be about?" you ask.
For those of you who have been with me since before I went to Hawaii and then got pregnant (all 3 of you) you might remember a little post called Writey McWriterson (yeah that's a link to the post) (also, Oy with the parenthesis already!). There I listed a ton of fun writing prompts and inspiration ideas and websites and by golly I haven't written any of them!
Well today my friends, that is going to change. I went back to my little post written a whole year ago and chose a writing prompt, number 13 to be exact. So buckle in, this one is going to be fun.
"13. When you think back to your childhood, what is the first memory that pops into your head? Write about it. "
It was a Saturday.
My room was straightened to Mom's satisfaction and I even scoured the bathroom. The rest of the day was officially mine. John on the other hand had creeped away from his disaster of a room to find me content in front of an episode of CatDog.
"I'm bored. Wanna go play monster hunters?"
"Aren't you supposed to be cleaning your room?" I, the responsible daughter, answered without looking up from the TV.
"Yeah, whatever, I finished. Do you want to play or what?"
Finally turning away from the TV I looked at John. I noticed three things: 1) his eyes were shifty as if he was nervous about something 2) His hands were shoved deep into his pockets 3) He was standing on the other side of the bookshelf from the entrance of the room, meaning if someone (Mom) peered into the room, they (Mom) would see me and not him. Of course being 8 years old, none of this seemed suspicious to me. This should have been red flag number 1.
"Mmm, yeah okay."
The next thing I knew, I was being led into the garage. Red flag number 2.
"What are we doing in the garage?"
"This is where all the monsters are." Obviously.
We ended up at the laundry room/closet which would serve as our monster hunter base camp. The room/closet was elevated from the rest of the garage by a single step and sliding closet doors isolated it. This way, as John explained, we could turn on the light in the laundry room/closet and leave the lights off in the rest of the garage authenticating the game. Plus, I was afraid of the dark and would not have been in that garage with the lights off otherwise.
John set the stage, "It's night time and we have to get our rest so we can be prepared to fight the monsters in the morning."
Logical. Explanation accepted.
He hoisted himself onto the top load washer and grabbed a couple blankets from the shelf overhead. Then he handed me one of them and laid down across both the washer and dryer, covered himself with the blanket and closed his eyes.
"Well, where am I supposed to sleep?" The room/closet was big enough that I could have laid on the floor but that didn't seem like proper monster hunter protocol.
John sat up. "The dryer," he said without much thought.
Red flag number 3.
"I'm not going to sleep in the dryer, John."
"Well you're small, it'll be like your own personal bunk and we'll leave the door wide open."
I was small. Logical. Explanation accepted.
And I crawled into the dryer with my little blanket and curled up and pretended to be asleep. I'll admit, I 've slept in less comfortable places.
Suddenly I heard the dryer door creaking shut.
"Hey! What are you doing?!" I exclaimed.
"Well, it is supposed to be nighttime, so wouldn't it make sense if it was darker in there for you? I won't close it all the way. We'll just leave it barely open and then it will be like a real monster hunter bunk."
Red flag number 4.
"You promise you won't turn it on?" I questioned.
"Of course not!" was his reply.
Logical. Explanation accepted.
So there I was, curled up IN THE DRYER with a little blanket and the door mostly closed. I was as content as could be. I started to think about what sort of monsters we would hunt and what kind of weapon I would have. I would probably kill more monsters than John even.
Then the dryer door slammed shut.
Red flag number 5, but it was too late.
I don't know if the sound of the door shutting really even registered in my brain. It all happened so fast. To be fair, I probably only made a rotation and a half at most. I suppose John felt guilty at that point and opened the door. All I remember is the 'thump thump thump thump thump' of my head hitting the fins inside the dryer as I rotated.
The door opened, and I spilled out onto the floor. If there were any monster John was most afraid of at that point, it was me. Hair mussed and face soaked with tears I was making noises that are akin to those you would picture a monster making; high pitched, squealing, voice cracking. I pushed John aside and headed straight into the kitchen where Mom was at the sink.
"Jocelyn? What happened?!" She exclaimed.
"Jocelyn, I'm so sorry! I'm sorry!" John yelled, running in behind me. I could almost feel the brief look of understanding on Mom's face, quickly followed by 'angry eyes,' as my face was buried in her stomach.
"John put ...me in.. the dryer..." I managed to stutter out, and then screamed, "AND TURNED IT ON!!"
I don't remember his punishment. In fact, I don't at all remember what happened after that. But I did learn a very valuable lesson that day: Never, under any circumstances do ANYTHING your brother tells you to do (and watch for the red flags). Unfortunately, these sorts of lessons don't stick very well in the mind of an eight-year-old and I was coerced into countless other shenanigans following this painful event.
So let this be a lesson to all you eight-year-olds out there...What's that you say, there are literally zero eight-year-olds reading my blog?
Well fine. No lessons.
Dryers are awesome for all...climb on in!
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