Tag Archives: childhood

Here’s a piece of paper with Batman on it. I mean, I love you.

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I played the childhood game well. I was an active participant in all the fun that could possibly be had. I finger painted with pudding. I sang “I’m A Little Teapot” and did all the motions. I hunted for eggs like a boss. I ate my Happy Meal and I liked it.

I bought it all. I didn’t question much. That is, until Valentines Day rolled around. That’s when my skepticism was piqued.

For all holidays in elementary school, there was a party. The Halloween party was always fun. The room mothers would come in and let us stick our fingers into bowls of cold spaghetti and tell us it was brains while we wore store-bought costumes. I didn’t mind that there were always several Cinderellas or Supermans. I was in the spirit. My public school was so white bread that we could have a flat-out “Christmas” party and no one would question whether that title was exclusionary. We probably would have sung “Away In A Manger” if Ashleigh’s mom had remembered to bring the portable cassette player.

Come February, the Valentines Day party rolled around, right when the sugar highs that we had experienced from Christmas were starting to wear off. The thing about the Valentines party was that there was homework involved. You had to prepare Valentines for everyone in your class, making sure that “Andrea K.” was differentiated from “Andrea V.” I got a bit of a rise the night before the party when I thought about my crush Kevin P. making a card out for me. For the 10 seconds it took for him to write my name across the bottom of the card, I was in his head and heart.

I was always skeptical of these cards, though. They were the third grade equivalent of phoning it in. As good a sport as I always was in all things of Kiddom, Valentines cards could not fool me into believing that they actually meant something.

First of all, you couldn’t even fold them. Everyone knows that in order for a card to be legit, you have to be able to fold it in half. The entire point of a card is to read the outside and get your attention with a clever pun or at least a picture of a cute cat, and then open it up to see what the punchline/ real message is. Children’s Valentines cards have absolutely no merit in this respect. You just take it out of the unsealable envelope and boom! There is the message. Where is the romance? Where is the finesse? Where is the use of our highly evolved opposable thumbs?

The messages themselves are real winners too.

garfield valentine (2)

Why, yes. Yes it is, Garfield Valentine card. It is Valentines Day. I can tell by all these Palmer’s candies being passed off as chocolate and by Mrs. Buchanan’s giant pink and red sweater with cupids making out on the back.

This one isn’t even trying:

Batman-Valentines-1-1-small

Well, since you spelled out “Whooosh!” with hearts for o’s, then love MUST be in the air. Look at Batman: he is running away from a giant heart! Affection is the literal nemesis in the milieu of this card.

Another reason I never bought into the charade of a Valentines card is that they all had some dumb theme that only appealed to the giver of said card. The point of giving a gift or a note is to tailor it to the recipient, not the giver. Tell that to an eight-year-old boy, who selects the box of Optimus Prime Valentines for his whole class:

Swoon.

Swoon.

BarbieYeah, something tells me that Beth the Pageant Participant isn’t going to love her Transformers card unless there’s a tube of watermelon LipSmackers taped to the back. No worries; Billy will get a compulsive Barbie Valentine in return. He’s a free-thinking lad. He will for sure get the sentiment, right?

The smart kids were aware of the lameness of Valentines and would insist on including a piece of candy within the tiny envelope. However, when you’re six and without a refined palate, you don’t yet appreciate the premium offerings of Godiva or even Ghirardelli. Instead, you go to what you know: heart-shaped antacids, the Valentines day equivalent of circus peanuts candy. Um, thanks?

I realized I had finally come of age yesterday when I logged into Facebook. A notification indicated that my husband had posted a picture to my wall. I clicked over and this is what I found:

ikea monkey

The man knows me and loves me. All that time he spent on Tumblr, he was actually just searching for the perfect card for me.

Happy V-Day to you all! May your day be full of chocolate-covered strawberries or full-strength Makers Mark.

Preferably both.

Tales of the World: Just Ask

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When you are in school, teachers always tell you that there are no dumb questions, which is true to an extent. It’s not dumb to ask when the test is, how many moons Jupiter has, or what the difference between an alligator and a crocodile is. It is, however, dumb to ask what the capital of Africa is.

I am overcoming a lifelong timidity towards asking for things. Unfortunately, I feel like a lot of the questions I ask are dumb and not worthwhile. I’m getting over it, but I want Miss C to seldom feel self conscious when she raises a question or asks for something. I promise to raise a child who is well enough equipped with basic information to not have to ask how many arms an octopus has if the world also promises to listen to her when she questions it. I want her to know that even if she gets turned down for a request, she was not dumb to ask. I want her to know that I am willing to surprise her when she asks me if she can have permission to do things. B and I likely won’t let her get her ears pierced before she’s 12 or stay out past eleven when she’s 16, but we will probably say yes to things that she expects us to shoot down. You’ve gotta keep your kids on their toes and surprise them with your coolness occasionally.

When I was a teenager, I was obsessed with the Smashing Pumpkins. My entire life was built around them. Most of my money went towards buying European b-side releases and tradeshow posters of them. I LOVED them, and I still do.

This picture of my room when I was a teenager doesn’t really have anything to do with this post, but it is pretty hilarious, so I thought I would tack it in.

In 1995, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was released. I hate to say it was epic, but check the definition. Over two hours long, it was actually epic. I asked my parents if I could go to the concert when the Pumpkins’ tour visited Memphis. The concert was on a school night, so I expected a no. I expected correctly. My plea was vetoed. This turned out OK because Billy Corgan allegedly ended the concert early because he was angry and a rockstar and he did stuff like that, apparently.

1998 rolls around. I was then 16, highly motivated, and more in love with the Pumpkins than ever. I checked their touring schedule on this thing called the Internet that we had in our house, which, incidentally, was created for the sole purpose of uploading and printing pictures of Billy Corgan for free. This time around, the Smashing Pumpkins would not be touring in Memphis but they would be making a stop in Nashville, which was about a three hour drive away.

I fully expected to get a big fat no again when I asked my parents if they would let me go. In addition to going to the concert which, let’s face it, THEY would buy my ticket for, they’d also have to drive me there and get a hotel room for the night. My parents weren’t fuddy duddies, but there’s only so much you can expect of people who often spoke of their love of the Carpenters back in the 70s.

But I asked. I just asked.

And my mom said yes.

I was really shocked when she agreed to take me and Besfrinn Cameron, but I didn’t question it. She bought our tickets – that’s right, our tickets; she attended the show with us because she’s that surprisingly cool – drove us there, and put all three of us up in a hotel for the night. All because I had the nerve to ask. She sat next to Cameron and me as we screamed every lyric, as we laughed at every droll joke James Iha made between songs, and humored us as we gushed about the show.

Me and Cameron pre-show. We were so cool.

Aaaand post-show. Apparently, I had just received news that all the kittehs just died.

She said no to many more of my schemes over the years, but occasionally she said yes to the things that meant a lot to me. The lesson for Miss C is twofold: 1, parents are cooler than you will I’ve them credit for, and 2, asking is worth it.

I’m making it a priority to raise C with the knowledge that she can ask. Even though we won’t always say yes or give her the answer she wants, we won’t ever laugh at her questions or make light of them. Doing so is finding that balance in parenthood where, even though you’re not the child’s friend, you are her ally and her guide.

My ally. My mom. She put up with me as a teenager so she wins.

Forgetful Jones, You Are Not Forgotten

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Awhile back I saw this image macro floating around on the Intertron:

Aside from the fact that the comparison of Mitt Romney to Guy Smiley seems a tad bit forced, this picture bummed me out. It reminded me that there was a time when Guy Smiley – a character from the Sesame Street of my 1980′s upbringing – was part of my everyday life. Now it’s Mitt Romney who I hear about every day, and I have publicly-funded broadcasting to thank for both. It’s a mixed bag, this up-growing. I miss Guy as I miss all those old characters. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not hating on Elmo. I think he’s cute and Wee Cee likes him, so we are kosher.

So what do you do when you think of old friends and decide to troll them? You friend them on Facebook. Then, if you think that your eons-old relationship with them was as magical for them as it was for you, you message them and hope for a response.

Here are those messages.

Dear Forgetful Jones,

Hi. Remember me? Haha. Sorry, that was kind of douchey of me. (Did I just say “douchey” in an email to an old Sesame Street character? Cue self loathing.) I was watching the Gangnam Style horse dance the other day and I thought of you. Random, eh? So, what are you up to nowadays? I never learned to ride a horse, but I did learn that my own forgetful tendencies were due to moderate ADD. Maybe you should get that checked out too. You are probably now thinking “Who is this person and why is she messaging me with a diagnosis of my forgetfulness?” Good question. I was that little girl wearing cowgirl boots and a hat whenever you came one. I loved you. Still do.

Dear Captain Vegetable,

Wassup, homefry? It’s been awhile. I can’t believe I have finally found you! While I was making some kale chips yesterday I thought of you and realized I always liked you more than Cookie Monster. This is likely because I felt kind of bad for you and your little costume with a picture of a carrot Scotch taped to the front. Still keep in touch with Eddie Spaghetti? You will be happy to know that my baby likes squash. I will be happy to know if you ever attacked that unibrow. Please let me know!

Dear Prairie Dawn,

Hey, Prairie Dawn! What’s up?! OMG, you were THE BEST. I don’t know how you were able to deflect Cookie Monster’s tomfoolery all those times, but your sass and exasperation always packed a whollup. So how are things? Do you still live on Sesame Street or did you leave for college? Did you go to Vassar and study music like we all expected? Can’t wait to hear from you, homegirl.


Dear Two-Headed Monster,

I hope you are the same two-headed monster I knew back in the day. Since there were several “Two-Headed Monsters” listed on Facebook, I had to make my best guess that this is you. Otherwise, please disregard this message! I can’t imagine why you didn’t make the cut of the monster-heavy Sesame Street cast of today (yet claymation Ernie and Bert somehow did), but your presence is missed. What are y’all doing these days? Ever thought of staging a comeback by performing The Odd Couple? I know, dumb idea. Put your heads together and I’m sure you’ll come up with something better.

Dear Sherlock Hemlock,

I saw a puppet of you at a flea market this past weekend and just had to look you up. ‘Member how you were the world’s greatest detective? I do, and that’s why I’m surprised you never showed up on CSI, Law and Order, Criminal Minds, or that show with LL Cool J and the principal from Kindergarten Cop. No worries. I’m sure that if half a chicken salad sandwich gets eaten by you goes missing, you will be called in as a first responder. Miss you much, friend.

 *All images Copyright Children’s Television Workshop. Except the one of Mitt Romney. I don’t think CTW would lay claim to that one.

You look as though you need a case of warm-fuzzies. I am here to remedy that.

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I knew before we had Wee Cee that Sesame Street was soon going to make a resurgence in our lives. But one can have worse problems, right? So come to find out that every single episode these days has celebrity spots. Celebrities were a common occurrence back in the day as well, but back then they were few and far between. Maybe I just didn’t get the references when I was little so they seemed to not be as common. Anyhoo, sometimes the current celebrity spots nail it completely, like when Will Arnett plays a magician, some not so much.

Not to get all “things were so much better when I was a kid” and all, but seriously, Katy Perry has nothing on John John and Bert. This clip is so tender, so sweet, that it’s on heavy rotation at our place these days, even after Miss C is sleeping.

Enjoy.

Tales of the World: Get Obsessed

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Gather ’round, kiddos. It’s time for another installment of Tales of the World for Wee Cee!

When I was in elementary school, once a month the teacher would hand out a Scholastic Book Club order pamphlet. Printed on fragile bible paper in full color, these handouts detailed books, books, and more books that could be yours if your mom deigned to order them for you. Which my mom did. By the dozen. She was (and still is) awesome like that. My own take-home lesson from this post is to just get my kid the books she wants. Reading never hurts.

In third grade, Scholastic made a mistake and sent me a book I hadn’t ordered: Exploring the Titanic by Robert Ballard. Blessed Scholastic, blessed error. By the end of the day, I was wholly entrenched in the Titanic disaster and there was no chance I was going to send the book back. It was terrifying and majestic. It was at the bottom of the ocean. It was covered in rustcicles. It was called Unsinkable, and it sank on its maiden voyage. The irony blew my eight-year-old mind. Just think about it for a second and it will blow your mind too. It was called Unsinkable, and it sank on its maiden voyage. Come on. You can’t make this stuff up.

The pictures and photos in the book were eerie and frightening. Such grandeur and life were lost all because of an iceberg and foolhardiness. There was one picture of a porcelain doll head that was just laying on the ocean floor among all kinds of other debris. Its clothe body and hair had been eaten away years and years ago. It was creepy and bizarre.

We  didn’t have The Ring when I was a kid. We had this. Source

Thus I became obsessed with the RMS Titanic at eight years old. I couldn’t resist the draw of this modern-day catastrophe of biblical proportions. I drew pictures in art class of the ship going down. I read A Night to Remember and was genuinely surprised when my classmates weren’t reading it too. I knew the history of the ship and could give you a hourly account of its descent into the abyss. I knew the number of rivets holding her hull together. I was fixated.

The thing that strikes me now is how morbid my fascination with the Titanic was. The movie was still years away from coming out, so it was not through the guise of a romantic narrative that my interest was sparked. That would have made sense for an eight-year-old girl. Instead, it was through the images of a slowly disintegrating passenger ship at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean that I became obsessed with human frailty and the remnants left behind when disaster strikes. I allowed myself to be engrossed in the events that brought her demise, and in a way that (perhaps) made it less likely that I’d ever have to go through such a catastrophe myself. Studying an event from the comforts of my own home disarmed it a little and made it an abstraction rather than a reality.

Becoming fixated on a person, an idea, or an event as a kid is a function of being young and having a safe, comfortable life. You can make time for a childhood obsession when you have moments to spare and brain matter open to devote to such superfluous things. The big, huge daunting world becomes a bit smaller and easier to digest when you can look at it through the lens of one small aspect of it. You can delve deep into the depths without leaving your parents’ side.

B and I often wonder what Miss C will latch onto when she gets older, what she will become intrigued with. Whatever it turns out to be, we will feed it. Childhood curiosity is delicious and we will cater to her whims, whatever they end up being.

Related Posts:

Tales of the World: Bad Dates

Tales of the World: Just Saying No

A New Excuse to Watch Cartoons

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Playing on my IPad makes me feel like a boss. Nevermind that I don’t actually own it. B got it for work and he’ll have to return it to the State of North Carolina once he leaves his position. Will we be able to afford our own? Highly unlikely unless Miss C starts paying rent. Despite the lack of scruples of Chik-Fil-A, I don’t think they’ll hire her until she’s finished kindergarten.

But we are all so behind the curve when it comes with this one particular piece of equipment. Um, remember Penny from Inspector Gadget? Remember her “computer book”?

It’s an IPad. DIC Entertainment was the Leonardo DaVinci of the 1980s. Steve Jobs (rest your soul), eat your heart out.

Enjoy your weekend!

If any of my former students read this post, they will be mortified.

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For the past couple nights, B and I have been editing all the photos on our computer after Miss C is down for the night, so as to make room for the colossal influx of pictures that has occurred since she was born. This has forced us to go through all the film we took while we were in Korea. Life these days is a little different than it was back then:

Taken around 4AM after the consumption of several adult beverages

Obviously the above picture made the cut. Obviously. But we did far more in Korea than go to pubs at 3AM and pose for pics with rubber chickens. Most of the time we were hanging with the kiddos:

The day before we finally left Korea after two years. I had only just gotten over the jetlag.

Luckily, we also have a big box of notes and art that kids gave us that helps us remember those old days.

And today is sharing day!

Kids were always drawing pictures of me.

Art by Clara, age 7

We weren’t allowed to play Hangman because according to the parents, it was too brutal and violent, so instead we played Petal Drop. I’d like to know what word I’m spelling on the board. I’d also like to know why I’m apparently teaching a class of jack-in-the-boxes. The child in the right corner is perplexed as well.

Just to clarify, I haven’t worn a vest since I was in sixth grade, thank God. That is a scarf (or sling?) I am wearing in the picture.

Of all the things my student Leewon (age six) could have put in my conversation bubble, she chose ”Look at me, please.” Wow, way to make me look dictatorial. Perhaps if they don’t give me 100% of their attention, I will slap them with my wooden baton. Those four kids who aren’t looking at me have it coming. Hell hath no fury.

We often got letters from the kids. B got this one on Teacher’s Day:

B wants me to mention that he thinks that the idea behind that last line is that since teaching is a service rather than a item, it is technically “nothing.” Right. Michelle is just a young Korean Chelsea Handler.

I got this card from Joe on White Day (basically Valentine’s Day but specifically for women):

Judging by Joe’s own handwriting (he was seven), I take that compliment extremely seriously.

The older kids didn’t make stuff for us as often. They were too busy playing Starcraft in their spare time. Therefore, when Scarlett – a nine year old who had been learning English since she was four – showed me this booklet she had made just for fun, I had to trade her a book of stickers in order to get her to give it to me permanently. Have you ever wanted a handy instruction book on how to put on silly makeup? Here you go. You can thank me later.

This must be concealer for Smurfs. *Wink.*

Step four results in blindness, FYI.

I’ve never been to a real ball. My life is not complete.

Fainting very hard should be avoided by all means necessary.

And this, my friends, is why we teach.

 

 

 

 

 

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It seems that since I changed my web address, everyone is still subscribed but updates of new posts may not appear in your WordPress feed. Pooh. Well, it is a free service so I guess you get what you pay for. The best way I’ve found of fixing this is to unsubscribe and then resubscribe. Updates should then appear in your feed. Thanks for bearing with me through this small change!

Brushes With Fame

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I am a giddy schoolgirl when it comes to celebrities. I don’t care what they’re famous for: I am the same blithering idiot whether it’s Snooki or Madeleine Albright. When I am in close proximity to them, I get a little stupid. So you can imagine how difficult it was for me to resist the urge to wake B up last night at 3AM, when during Miss C’s midnight feed, I found this on my Twitter:

I have arrived.

I have no idea how or why he found me on Twitter (although I have a feeling it has something to do with this post), but LeVar Burton – of Roots, Star Trek: TNG, and (most importantly) Reading Rainbow fame – is now following me.

I am dumbstruck.

Before I even knew what a fan was, I was a fan of LeVar Burton. There was an episode of Reading Rainbow where he’s exploring Chinatown in NYC and he goes to a restaurant where the chef prepares Mongolian beef for him tableside. After seeing this, one of my favorite games was to play pretend Chinese restaurant in our backyard. I’d pull up monkey grass and mushrooms, mix them with water from the spigot, and serve them up in a Frisbee to my then-baby brother. Got your homemade Mongolian beef right here. I was four.

When I was teaching English in Korea, I taught from a series of American reading books and occasionally there were stories I hadn’t even thought of since I saw them on Reading Rainbow when I was super little. But whenever I taught them I would get so excited that the kids would notice and ask me why I was geeking-out over an Arthur story. I would then explain that it was on a show I watched when I was a kid, and the students would henceforth be bewildered that I was ever a child.

So yeah, LeVar Burton’s follow means a heck of a big deal to me.

I’ve had a few brushes with fame in my life. The first one that comes to mind is the time I met Billy Corgan at a book signing. I’m actually quite amazed that I haven’t yet devoted an entire post to my hardcore adoration of the Smashing Pumpkins when I was a teenager. I was an absolute, balls-to-the-walls, do-or-die superfan. And I loved Billy Corgan.

LOVED LOVED LOVED.

During college I grew out of my obsession to a certain degree, which I suppose was a good thing because I needed to start paying attention to reality a little bit and stop fantasizing about how I was going to somehow meet and marry Billy Corgan and have his awkward bald-headed children. I had been in Chicago for graduate school for about a month when I remembered that that was where he lived. I googled him and it turned out that he was doing a book signing at Borders that very evening. I was so there.

I went downtown to the Water Tower and took the escalator to the forth floor of the Borders where he would sign copies of his new book of poetry. I sat in line for hours. Even though this was when he was in-between Zwan and the “reuniting” of the Pumpkins, there was already a line three hours ahead of time before the signing. Billy Corgan fans are a devoted bunch, even with his more lackluster projects.

He finally arrived and I got my book signed. Just like that. It was pretty much one of the most anticlimactic moments of my early-adulthood. He was nice, I guess, but I don’t have any inspirational stories to tell as testament to his wondrousness as a human being or anything. He was just a guy, promoting his book, smiling at the fans, which is what almost anyone would do if they were in his position. The whole ordeal made me finally realize that celebrities are just people too. They drink water and breathe air and have crappy days just like everyone else. They just sign books and ride around in tour buses too.

I was also around famous people when I was an extra in Walk the Line. In both of the scenes I’m in, both Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix were on-set and performing. The first time each of them came out, I was a little awe-struck. There they were, pretending to be someone else.

And they were at work. It was their job to pretend to be someone else. That was what floored me. Don’t get me wrong, they were both good at pretending. Heck, Reese Witherspoon even won an Oscar for her performance. But what killed me was that for some reason, they were both born with a certain amount of talent, charm, or some other magical element, that made them rise above everyone else, get famous and then be adored and admired by people they will never even know. It’s just bizarre when you think about how the very nature of fame dictates that the famous person can’t possibly know all the people who give him or her that distinction.

When you do come into contact with famous people, it makes you remember that they’re just humans, plugging along just like the rest of us. In-between the tweeting, signing books, and making movies, they’re sleeping, eating, bathing, worrying, and living life. Every-so-often, they reach out like LeVar did to me and help you remember that they’re real and not just an image on a screen or a voice on a track. Pulling back that screen a little makes the world a bit smaller and safer.

In Heaven

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We remember a lot more of our early childhoods than we give ourselves credit for. When my mom was here meeting Miss C awhile back, she asked me what my first memory was, and I immediately thought of my brother’s birth when I was 3 1/2 and how he “gave” me a Barbie and a bag of M&Ms as a gift. Trevor was nothing if not thoughtful as an hours- old infant.

I’m not talking about the newfangled Ponies that are aware of their irony. We’re going sugary-sweet OLD SKOOL.

But then, the other day, something triggered an even earlier memory of mine. I recall being  really, really little and asking my mom what Heaven was like. I don’t remember what she said, but I do remember asking her if my room in Heaven (because, duh, you get your own room in heaven) could have My Little Pony wallpaper and a My Little Pony bedspread, to which she said yes. When I was small, the image of God that I had in my head was of an old giant with a long white beard sitting in a chair, wearing blue jeans. He was old and bearded, of course, because He was God and predated everything.Thus facial hair. He was sitting because that is the posture of wisdom and omnipotence, according to small me. I suppose I pictured him wearing blue jeans because that made Him a bit more down to earth or something. He could wear whatever He wanted, being God and all. Why not jeans?

I like my three-year-old theology. It is simple, wishful, and nonjudgmental. Of course, it can’t really help you sort out real problems, but what real problems does a three-year-old have that s/he must sort out all on her own? We’ll leave those to the grownups.

When I was small, I chose a My Little Pony theme for my corner of Heaven. This got me thinking what my slice of Heaven would look like now. I came up with a few things.

1. In Heaven, Arrested Development never gets cancelled. It goes on and on, never “jumping the shark” despite its affiliation with several former cast members of Happy Days.

2. In Heaven, WASP-y girls like me can perform Outkast’s “Rosa Parks” for karaoke without the prompter. And it’s not ironic; it’s just AWESOME.

3. In Heaven, all coffee is organic, fair trade, and perfectly roasted. It’s fresh all the time. You never run out of sugar and cream at home, CoffeeMate is not the only thing offered to accompany your cup of free coffee at Jiffy Lube, and your favorite “Keep Austin Weird” mug that you got on your honeymoon never breaks into five pieces.

4. In Heaven, you never feel the pressure to read dud books that people recommend to you. Also, you aren’t judged as a vile, hateful human being when you say that you don’t like Harry Potter and really don’t understand what all the  fuss is about.

5. In Heaven, breastfeeding is easy.

6. In Heaven, you can bottle the smell of newborns.

7. In Heaven, you don’t have to use coasters because cups never leave rings on your furniture.

Most of all, in Heaven you are reminded by everything you see, hear, and taste of the wonderful memories of your life and where they came from. You recall them at the precise moments when you will appreciate them the most. Even the hard things that you don’t remember relishing at the time are recalled happily because they added texture to your experience. The smallest things point to the biggest things and make you realize how connected they are.

Everything is fine. And not at all creepy.

What is your Heaven made up of? 

Tales of the World: Just Saying No

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For the first installment of Tales of the World for Miss C, check out this post. 

When my friend Kendra visited Miss C and me last week, we got to reminiscing as old friends are prone to do about our days in elementary and middle school. She is probably my only real remaining friend from those days, so I rely on her to remind me that my penchant for eating a jar of peperoncinis with a large glass of milk is well-established as one of my most disgusting oddest cravings. I did that when I was a kid; now the training wheels are off and I can down an entire jar with no pain-dulling beverage whatsoever, which pretty much freaks/grosses out everyone.

Just say no to smoking and yes to cuteness.

We also got to talking about being members of the Smoke Free Class of 2000. (Yes, this was a Thing, and I even linked to a 1989 NY Times article to prove it.) Basically, being born in 1981 and 1982 meant that Nancy Reagan and the girl who played “Rudy” on The Cosby Show were going to try their dardest to keep you from smoking by way of your public school guidance counselor. Kind of a mall Santa Claus-type thing; since they couldn’t do it themselves, they sent out a representative to do their work for them.

From first grade onward, we were drilled in the protocol of Just Saying No to smoking, specifically. Pretty much anyone from our class could spew the stats on how many people die in America from smoking every year and what the lung of a lifetime smoker looks like postmortem. The lung assembly resulted in me many students being ushered from the cafetorium to put their heads between their knees so they wouldn’t barf.

I totally got on board with saying no. This is probably because no one was asking me to smoke in the first place, but we needn’t split hairs. In sixth grade, I even wrote a poem wherein a girl gets approached on the playground by some older kid (who else?) to smoke but she declines in iambic pentameter. Did I mention that I wrote this poem on my own accord? Yeah, it wasn’t assigned; just did it on a Saturday afternoon. (For further reading on why I’m a nerd click here.)

Two triple zero, everyone’s a hero.

By the time the year 2000 rolled around, I was a beacon of light for the smoke-free agenda. Bill Clinton was in office but Nancy Reagan was still in my heart. On my eighteenth birthday, in a misguided display of my staunch opposition to nicotine, I went to a gas station with Cameron and her then-boyfriend to buy a pack of cigarettes which I would then flush down the toilet in an act of defiance. Nevermind that I was giving the tobacco companies money by doing so. It was the gesture that counted.

I sidled up to the counter with my still-underage friends flanking me and immediately blanked when the attendant asked me what I needed.

I asked them, “What kind am I supposed to get?”

“Marlboro Reds,” the chorus chanted.

“Ah yes, one pack of Marlboro Reds, please.”

To this, the attendant rolled her eyes. “You do realize I’m not going to sell you cigarettes now that you’ve clearly shown that you’re buying them for your friends, right?”

Fail.

Why it was more important for us to be smoke-free than our friends from the classes of 1999 and 2001, I cannot explain. Perhaps it was our birthright for our lungs to be especially looked after by First Lady Nancy, who saw the potential in us and was adamant to protect us from the dangers of smoking.

So Kendra and I were talking about our smoke-free indoctrination when she said, “Well, I guess it worked pretty well because I never smoked.”

I guess this means I failed Mrs. Reagan.

Because I did smoke for about fifteen minutes in college.

What can I say? College brought out the rebel in me. My gateway drug was Pringles, which I had consumed maybe only a few times in my life due to the fact that my mom had the pesky habit of feeding us actual food during our formative years. Before I knew it, I was unabashedly bringing Pop Tarts into the dorm and eating them too with no abandon, not only for breakfast but for dinner in-between meals as well. Months passed in my downward spiral and before I knew it I was making midnight runs to Taco Bell for chalupas. The destruction of my body was well underway via junk food so it was only a matter of time until I undid the best efforts of my parents and the Ad Counsel and started smoking.

Ranked only slightly lower than cigarettes on the “Things That Will Make You Die” List

It began easily enough and ended in an all-night ralph session. Out of boredom and curiosity I smoked a few of my sorority sister’s cigarettes one night and subsequently coughed up a lung. However, if I am anything it is determined, so once I discovered that ultra light cigarettes existed, I was all about them.

Yes, nothing is cooler than a nineteen-year-old girl carrying out the same rebellious acts as eleven- and twelve-year-olds, and for the exact same highly sophisticated reasons. The only difference was that my defiance lacked teeth since I was, you know, legal and all. I certainly wasn’t impressing any of my peers with my pack-a-year “habit,” but I never would have known it at the time because I was too busy to notice. My time was monopolized by constantly posing with the cigarettes in front of a mirror and practicing how I would hold them at parties. I was one happening gal.

My foray into smoking ended as abruptly as it had started. One night I was up studying for finals, which had all been scheduled for the following day. I thought to myself, “This seems like a nice opportunity to try out this chain smoking I’ve heard so much about.” Great plan. Keep in mind that over the course of the prior six months I had smoked maybe three packs of cigarettes. Maybe that many. Likely far less.

So that night when I staged the Great Chain Smoking of Emily, I was probably four hours in to my binge when I got horribly sick to my stomach and ended up ralphing for hours. When I finally went to bed I felt like I had been hit by a Mack truck. Surprise, surprise. I’m not a born smoker.

Why is this a Tale of the World for Miss C? Is it to show her that smoking is bad for her and she resist the urge to try it? Is it to demonstrate that I have been there and done that so there’s little she can do to shock me? Is it to make her jealous that I had the likes of Nancy Reagan looking after me in my formative years?

Well, yes, but it’s mainly to remind her that she is a product of me. She’s got that nerd gene that will shine through whether she chooses to embrace smoking or compose poems against it.

The moral of the story is to just write poems about smoking. It’s way healthier.