A Memo Concerning: Nancy Drew, Weiners, and SuperSoakers.

So today I was once again possessed by the keen desire to storm into a Wells Fargo Bank wielding Super Soaker 3000’s with aims to assault every banker with geysers of my aqua-fury. Now while this desire is usually a result of catching ACDC over the FM radio at just the right attitude, today it wasn’t and so it is noteworthy. I suppose the root of this desire extends back to habits from my youth-- the penchant for walking into banks with my mother, squirt gun tucked into my elastic waistband jeans, feeling like I was about to take all the money up in that bitch even with the leaky squirt gun making it look like I had just pissed myself.

I used to be deathly afraid of the dark, a firm believer in ghosts, monsters and ne’er-do-wellers. This is why I have to question where my childhood courage came from, the shameless and bold behavior. Where did I find the strength to cut my bangs the night before school pictures? How did I smile with the bizarre combination of oversized adult teeth and soon-to-be-loose baby teeth stacked in my mouth like a drunken game of Boggle? Why did I feel no shame when sliding my foot along Jessica Chesborough’s ankle during SSR no matter how many times she moved it away from me? I remember a series of dialogue one young Halloween:
Degenerate Child: “Who did that skeleton make-up for you?”
Me: “My Mom.”
Degenerate Child: “Well she did it like a pig.”
Me: “Well at least my mom didn’t make my belly like one.”
Where did this come from? Yes it is true, I no longer sleep with a Mag-lite flashlight under my pillow ready to simultaneously illuminate the undead and beat the crap out of them, and yet I still don’t feel like I have the same amount of courage as I did as wee youngster. When I think about this I come to very bizarre conclusions/actions. This is why it is no surprise that even recently I have found myself getting a lightening bolt nail polished onto both of my big toes from elderly, former prostitute, Vietnamese women just before dusk in Santa Barbara. And as if that wasn’t bold enough, half of my mani/pedi-cure experience was preformed by a dude. What would Jessica Chesborough think about this?

Well, perhaps the best haircuts are the ones we give ourselves.

After reading recent quotations from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad I am once again mystified by the bizarre human ability to convince ones self that anything is true. I think of the woman who feels she is more attractive with three eighths of an inch of makeup and a collagen treatment that leaves lips on the verge of explosion. I think of the dude cruising around in a bright yellow hummer h2 with thirty inch spinner rims who thinks his weiner is massive. I think of the senile old man walking into a supermarket convinced that this is where he used to live, his bed right in the middle of a paper towel display. I think of the emo teenager so casual with life before it has even begun, sucking down cigarettes as if it was the most bold act since casual sex, confused within confusion. And so I am scared, frightened, and yes even confused by the thought that I once was sure that something from beneath by bed would eat me.

Whenever I think that I have grown up I realize that there is no such thing. “Grown” signifies completion and this I know will always be far from true. But one day during SSR Jessica Chesborough sneezed in violent, Mt. St. Helens fashion all over her copy of a Nancy Drew meets The Hardy Boys epic. Her snot/lava flow dribbled down to her upper lip and she quickly attempted to cover it with her already tainted book. I never could have imagined that the answer to all my lustful childhood prayers could be answered in one custard snot rocket. I can still remember the softness of Jessica Chesborough’s lips when I kissed her underneath the swirly slide on the playground days later, the sweetness of it all as I later licked my lips, and her subsequent willingness to fully engage in footsy for the rest of our elementary school experience. Today I think about this episode and I think I can wait things out. Who knows where we will next find our courage?

And so we have A Memo Concerning: Nancy Drew, Weiners, and SuperSoakers.