recount a disturbing/funny childhood memory

Some time after I had gotten over my fear of dogs, I recounted this episode to my mom and she gave me a weird look and said, "Nothing like that ever happened to you." So I guess it must have been a bad dream. I still remember it vividly, though, 20+ years hence.

(stretches out them old, weary, typed-out knuckles for ol' storytime...)

Allrightie, back in 1982 or 1983, my folks thought it would be "really cute" if I went on a game show. Being a fan of game shows at the time, I was quite excited. And living in 'da westside Los Angeles/Santa Monica area, there were plenty of easily driveable opportunities to do just that. Unfortunately, there was only room for a taping of a pilot of a rehash of "The Dating Game: Kid's Edition". (This is pre-Jeff MacGregor mind you) At that point, I became more apprehensive, but my folks goaded me into doing it, saying "Oh, come on! Didn't you always want to be in TV?"...

Don't ask me why, but given the scarce amount of participants, I somehow made it past the screening processes, being shy and socially inept for an 11-year-old and all. Fast forward to day of taping, skipping all the silly details in between..

Taping happens, blah blah. It's looking pretty obvious that Bachelor #2 (me) was obviously cast as the token "dork" bachelor, as the wishy-washiness of my answers would make Charlie Brown seem like Mr. T.

Anyway, the bachelorette. Oh yes, the wonderful little prissy princess that was the bachelorette. Keep in mind -- valley girl has struck it BIG in America at the time -- so out comes our little Tarzana sweetheart... introduction is made, etc. etc. etc.

Her name: Tunia Flambe.

Yes. Pronounced "Toonya Flambay"... Single hair clip, glittery shoes, fake gum chewing maneuvers and all... but with a disingenuous Tina Yothers quality to her.

I refuse to go into detail on what may still possibly be the most embarrassing moment of my life, but I do remember one of her questions to Le Bachelors: "Ok, so like we're going out getting ice cream.. and, like, this BIG DUDE, like, comes and threatens to steal me away and make me his.. would you, like,.. fight for me?"

Well, obviously, I didn't win.. that, ahem, lucky honor went to the Jason Hervey/Jason Batemen/Ricky Schroeder wannaba guy to my left. But of course, what's the staple consolation on any episode of "The Dating Game"? Right, you have to walk over, have some announcer guy bellow out a cheap 17-word bio on you, you walk over and hug the bachelorette.

Well I did that. Except that the hug was obviously too ambitious, as she slightly jerked, quickly whipped her hair back, and made a little "I'm annoyed" breathing sound, followed by "like... my hair."

The pilot never made it to TV. The next version (that would have Jeff MacGregor as the host) would actually become popular, but not mine.. which is easily the best thing to result from all of this, besides the fact that my family understood my grief and owned no VCR at the time, so I wouldn't have to fear the existence of "the tape", which we never requested.

That would end my fascination with valley girls for a long time to come -- until I'd realize, years later, that Moon Unit Zappa was still a cutie.

I remember riding down the street on my trike - my sister was following in her stroller being pushed by my Aunt. We lived in a rural town, and across the street from home was a large field where some neighbors kept some young bulls. That day, as we were on our walk/ride, one of the bulls broke through the fencing and came after us - I recall my aunt grabbing my sister and the stroller in one swoop and then trying to grab me, but I was flying away as fast as that trike could go - ended-up screaming into a strange neighbor's yard - he'd been out in the back of his home, hottubbing with some friends, smoking pot and all (yeah, it was the early 70s) and they call came flying around the side of the house, steaming and naked, so see what the fuss was about. My aunt had jumped a fence, sister in arms, and was up a tree - the adults saw me, then saw the bull, and grabbed me (several of them, at once) and fled into the house. I had some awesome bruises the next day, from where I'd been grabbed.

I also remember the first lie I was ever caught-in - though I still don't think it was an intentional lie. I was playing in the yard with my imaginary best friend, Danny, who was older than me (kind of nebulous in age, as I recall) and we saw an alligator lizard. Danny said "It's a snake" and so I screamed and went running inside. Eventually I had to confess that it was Danny's fault - and I got in trouble for lying about my imaginary friend. It was horrid.

And the first creative story that I told? I don't remember it, but my little sister says she still dreams of it. As I said, the town where we lived was rural and small (pop. 106). Jenny was about 3 and I was about 5. One night, during the summer, Mom had put us to bed and then walked across the creek to see a friend. Apparently my sister woke-up and was scared. So she woke me up. And I calmly explained to her that she was imagining things and didn't she remember that Mom had been killed in a car accident and that now we lived wiht our grandparents. Apparently I kept reassuring her that she kept forgetting all of this and that it was okay, because I'd keep reminding her. She ran screaming from the house - I went back to bed. Apparently a neighbor heard her screams and came and got her and then hollered across the creek for my mother to come home.

I really feel horrible about that last memory - I mean, I feel sick when I think of it and wonder what kind of a person woudl make-up something like that. And yet, at the same time, I am pleased and a bit thrilled that I was able to tell a story so well that it would traumatize my sister for life.

I do not do this.

And in third-grade, I was bored, and so I decided to flip-off a classmate just to see what it felt like. I did, and he told the teacher and I denied it happened and he got sent to the principal's office for lying and trying to get me into trouble, when, of course, "Laura would never do anything like that!". I felt guilty and avoided him after that. Then his father died and he moved schools. When I was 19 I ended-up at a party - was very drunk and half-asleep with someone's head in my lap - a guy walked into the party, sat down, and started talking with people. Then he looked at me and said "You flipped me off!" I was blank for a moment or two, then the memory came back. I apologized profusely, he eventually forgave me, and we went down to the river and skinny-dipped and drank beer until the sun rose. Can't remember the conversation, though, and I never saw him again *sigh*

Brilliant thread though. Why are you describing yourself as ugly, BTW?

Most of these took place b/w the ages of 11 and 14. My parents were getting divorced. We had just moved to a farm out in the middle of nowhere in hopes of restoring it. My mom had left. My dad didn't know how to take care of us, so we were often hungry and looked like po' white trash.

ANyways, one quiet Sunday morning we got up to go to church as per usual. When I opened the front door, I screamed really loud. On the ground there were bajillions of tiny hands and feet and bits of hair. Apparently, my youngest sister had left her huge tub of Barbie dolls outside overnight and the dogs had gotten to it. The worst was a Ken head that we found a bit later with a huge chunk flapping out.

One day I came home from school to find my baby sister crawling around on the roof of the house. I ran in, went out on the roof through a bedroom window, and grabbed her. It turned out that my other sister had dared her to do it.

I mentioned we were often hungry. Well, since my dad doesn't have a very big appetite, he wouldn't buy many groceries at all. The pantry was full of spam. I took it upon myself to make dinner every night. Mmm... Lots and lots of spam. In an attempt to make dinner more exciting, I decided to draw little diagonal lines on the top with a knife before cooking it and putting cloves inside all the cross-points. I was v. proud of how I made our spam chunk look just like the pic on the container.

(it just struck me how fantastic a kiddy 'Fucked By Rock' would be)

One day, this girl Zoe I was sitting next to turned to me and said "Wow! You're SO ugly!" I was really offended and hurt at the time. Fortunately, a couple of years ago there was a reunion (muhaha) and I reminded her of this event. Ahh, it was great. It was really like one of those horrible 80's movies where the nerd comes back as some handsome dreamboat*. (stylings adjusted appropriately for the late 90s)

(* in this case, "handsome dreamboat" = "not ugly")

I was about seven or so and was walking along the sidewalk with my friend Kevin Orms and this big lumoxy older kid who lived in the neighborhood walked past us. Me and Kevin were kidding about something and Kevin laughed loudly. Big lumoxy older kid, being big and lumoxy, thought we were laughing at him and said something like, "why are you laughing at me?" We said we weren't and kept walking. But the big lumoxy kid kept looking back at us. So I say to Kevin, "I dare you to laugh very loudly." Kevin, being a good friend, laughs as loud and hard as he can. The big lumoxy older kid, who is now about two blocks away, stops, turns, and starts running toward us. So me and Kevin take off running for our lives, but the big lumoxy older kid catches up with us after about 5 blocks. I forget what he said but he pushed Kevin to the ground, and we went to a family friend's and told her about our trauma.

Another time, when there was a big war between the boys and girls at my elementary school, me and Kevin decided we'd be on the girls side to -- get this -- protect them (so smart!!). So I'm walking out on the playground after lunch and this GIANT pack of like 100 boys comes running out and I'm convinced they are all out to get me. So I start running for my life down this hill and they're chasing me (I really can still see the image of their faces, like something out of Lord of the Flies)! I turn toward this bench where the recess monitor is sitting and plop down beside her, only to watch the giant pack of boys run past toward their meeting place at the bottom of the hill, completely oblivious to me. Later me and Kevin tried to make a hiding place for the girls out of branches. I think we gave up after a couple days of work.

I remember laughing at how my toes looked when I wiggled them

its weird how some memories are so vivid and so small. a lot of mine are like this. flashes.

i thought of another disturbing one. I'm 8. I have two best friends and we hang out all the time. we have discovered a small opening in the nearby woodlands and have constructed a kind of fort.
my two friends start climbing trees and doing strip teases, eventually getting stark naked. i stand below watching in befuddlement.
the next few times we go they do this again. i start to fear it. it really f**ks up my playtime with them.

This is the ugliest story from my childhood, and the only truly "paranormal" experience I've ever had (that I can remember without the aid of hypnosis, anyway). I really wish it weren't true. On a nice Saskatchewan summer day a couple of my friends dropped by to see if my brother and I wanted to go and ride bikes with them, which was something we did almost every day. In spite of the nice weather and the heat inside the house, I decided to stay home, since as soon as my friends knocked on the door I felt really uneasy, like I knew something terrible was going to happen. My brother called me a dink or something like that and went out with them - two brothers, Conrad and Anthony, Anthony being the older. About an hour after they went out my brother ran into the house, his face white as a ghost. Anthony's bike was a little big for him, I guess, and while they were riding along a curb he lost control, fell, and managed to land his top teeth on the curb (as if he was curb stomping himself), driving the teeth up through his jaw and into his sinuses. He was rushed in an ambulance to a hospital in Regina for surgery and ended up ok. To this day when my brother and I talk about the incident he barely mentions the accident - he dwells on the fact that I seemed to know it was going to happen beforehand. Fucking strange. I guess the question that's begged is why I didn't try harder to stop them. I guess I felt a little silly about feeling so worried. Oh well. Sorry if that grossed anyone out.

oh wait, I don't have a sister. and I repressed all that. oh well, off to bed...