Dead at 27: Warning #3

Warning #3 came in the form of a career change.
The bank lists different "careers" that are available for each colleague to apply for.
The first job I applied for was a Training Specialist and something like a million salary grades higher than my first position with the bank (job title: Meager sales associate that needs second job in order to make ends meet).
So I apply for this job and because I was on Final Written Warning (FWW, cool bank term), I needed special approval to even post for the position. At this point, I think my manager was eager to get rid of me and my antics (I never hit goals and chatted with customers about personal stuff, not bank products).
So I'm called in for the first interview, then the second interview. Then I'm told to prepare a twenty minute presentation about some aspect about the bank, have a game included in the presentation and of course the people that I would present this to were the Who's Who of the bank in Pittsburgh.
I created the PowerPoint presentation of my life and put my all into this. For days, I tweaked my presentation, all in the hopes of getting out of the retail aspect of retail banking.
On the day of my presentation, I was super nervous, freezing cold and sweating like a pig. I never practiced my presentation, I just knew my topic like no one else. I was a friggin professional and I had the powersuit to match (and shoes, of course).
I come home after my presentation and discovered that I had a fever of 102 and found out the following day that I had pneumonia. On the third day, I heard that the bank decided to lay off the entire Training department. Thanks, Bank! Goodbye, career! You owe me $250 for the suit and shoes!
To this day, I have applied for 22 positions in the bank, have interviewed for ten of those positions, and everytime I get close to a career, the Bank lays off that entire department. If someone isn't trying to tell me something, I don't know what's going on.

Dead at 27: Warning #2

Warning #2 that I should not work in a retail bank came in the form of an actual warning, a Final Written Warning, in fact (or FWW in cool bank terms).

So we have all of these special secret ways of doing things in a bank and one of them is opening. They say that opening the bank is the most dangerous time for bankers. Well, I started out in this grocery store bank and this was when Britney Spears was pregenant for the first time and I was young and I cared. It was big time gossip.

So I'm standing outside of the bank (still in the grcoery store) and the banker that's opening the branch is suppossed to throw a newspaper on the floor to signal to me that the bank is open. But Britney Spears is pregnant and I can't stop reading People and Us Weekly to save my life. To me, at the time, that was the greatest part about working in a grocery store bank: free reading material and gossip. Loved it.

I was reading for about thirty minutes when I decided that I should just walk into the bank. The opening banker didn't toss the paper and I just assumed that she forgot. We all forget, right? It wasn't her fault.

"Dude, you didn't throw the paper."

Opening banker: "That's because you were being TESTED."

BUSTED! My first major screwup with the bank and they put me on Final Written Warning, meaning that if I messed everything up again, I was out the door: no more free gossip magazines for Holly. FWW meant that I didn't get an "incentive bonus"

"But I don't get one anyway..."

and I also couldn't post to other positions that opened in the bank

"Bullshit. You never told me that you would test me."

Now it was pretty clear that a career with the bank wouldn't go any further than the retail side of things. And yet I stayed. I stayed for the gossip magazines and the lovely PA announcements that we were forced to read over the grocery store speakers.

Attention shoppers! We've got, um, shit. Which one was I reading? No... that's the old one dumbass. Here you do it. No! I did it last time! Fine! You getting coffee? Here, take a five outta my wallet and grab me one, willya? (clear throat) Attention Shoppers! Hey... wait... gimme a Chai Tea Latte instead. Click.

Dead at 27: Warning #1

Perhaps this book should be named Dead at 23, because I took up a “career” in banking at that age. I was right out of college and totally depressed because I couldn’t find a full-time job as a copyeditor or novelist.

There were warnings that I was making a mistake.
Warning #1
My third interview with the bank took place in a small office set inside of the grocery store. The manager was young, my age, and for the sake of being humorous and at the same time completely honest, I’ll call him Dick.

Dick: “So tell me a bit about yourself, Holly.”
So I told him what I was: a recent college grad.

Dick: “Just so you know” (here he looks at my resume because he can’t remember my name to save his life and really all that he knows is that his branch needs help and I look like help. He should have called me Help) “Holly, college graduates think they are worth a lot more money than they actually are.”

Hmph! Earth to Holly!
If I could go back, I would walk out of that office right at that moment.

But I didn’t. I stayed and by staying a part of me died in that office. I needed money. Soon enough, my old car would go and the student loans would start demanding money. I felt as if it was my only option, and this feeling of mine was probably the only reason why the bank hired me. I mean, I majored in English! I had no business dealing with numbers. They wanted me because they knew I needed a paycheck. They wanted me to fear.

Dick hated me from the start because I questioned everything he did. Actually, I corrected his language. He said IGNORANT all the time and I told him that by definition, he was ignorant in using ignorant the wrong way. When he said it (Them people are ignorant), the skin around my ear would shove itself into my ear drum. To this day, I can’t hear well. Even my body hated him.

Country: Piano Lessons

My piano lessons started at the ripe age of four in my grandmother’s house on her Steinway. I learned the basics, but was still far from being a professional by the time we turned country.

My country piano teacher was a little odd and very strict. She made weekly visits to our house to keep me up to date on my piano skills. Mom attempted to enroll Chuckie in piano lessons, but my teacher gave up on him on day one. Piano lessons on day one are simple, one-handers. Always a Multitasker, Chuckie played the lesson with one hand and kept the other hand in between a bag of chips and his mouth. The Piano Teacher didn’t like the Potato-chip-C,C,C move very much and the next week, she was back to one student. Throughout the years, I had one goal for the piano: Learn to play Beethoven’s Fur Elise then drop the lessons like a bad habit. I wasn’t interested in piano enough to become all dreamy and professional. I wanted one song.

I think I practiced Fur Elise to the point of violence. Not one member of my family can listen to the song without wincing: I played it that much.

On the next to the last day of my lessons, my teacher walked into the house with (quite literally) cherry red hair. When my mother asked about her new haircolor, my teacher replied that she read somewhere that Jello could be used to set your hair at night. She set her the night before with Cherry Jello, thus creating the whimsical red. Note: you can use Jello to set your hair, but don’t go picking a flavor, unless you desire to eat it or smell like that flavor for days. Go with unflavored. Or be different. Whatever.

On that same day, I played Fur Elise for my teacher like I never did before. It was a beautiful, magical moment and I knew right away that I didn’t want more. Finished. But for some reason, I didn’t share this breakthrough with anyone else.

The next week, my teacher showed up as scheduled and while I watched her car pull into the driveway, I quickly ran out into the field behind the house. This was, apparently, my way of making a statement. Crouching down behind the vast cover of grass, I watched and listened as my mother and teacher screamed for me. I turned my back and covered my ears, waiting, patiently and fearfully, for my teacher to leave forever.

She did leave forever and I was reprimanded heavily by my mother for the embarrassment and not listening to a damn thing. I think I was grounded for a week. But being grounded for a week really meant that night, with the threat of a week. I woke up and cleaned the house the next morning to guilt my way into an ungrounding. To this day, I can play Fur Elise by heart.

Country: Death by Solar Cover

The fun thing about summer in the country was the pool. The scary thing about summer in the country was the pool. While Ann and I liked to pretend we were mermaids (neither one of us could name ourselves Ariel because it wasn’t fair to the other. Ariel was the best name. We settled for Aquina and Aquatra. It’s Latin for Holly and Ann, I think), there was a looming fear over all of us: the Solar Cover.
The solar cover was the plastic, bubbly thing that covered the pool while it wasn’t in use (that’s the important part) and warmed the water. Mom had us all convinced that if you swam in the pool with the solar cover partly covering the water, you would die. The solar cover has some sort of weird, magical power of sucking beings underneath it. The problem: as a child, when the solar cover is on the pool, it appears that you could (quite easily) walk across the water like Jesus. Not so. If you were to touch that solar cover with even one little toe, you would die.
Recently, our dog Clemenza decided to jump in the pool while the solar cover was on (apparently she has the same thought process as a child, or a Jesus-complex. Both are equally possible). I screamed in horror, watching her little paws tiptoe across the cover, the solar cover, in all its evil, waiting silently for its prey.
My husband Tristan jumps into the pool to save the dog, and in my mind, I’m thinking they are both dead. Tristan, calmly as ever (I’m screaming and crying), swoops Clemenza up to safety (with wet paws, nothing else) and then casually pulls himself out of the pool. Apparently the solar cover can choose its victims. And Clemenza proved to herself that walking on water was a breeze.

Country: Murder Mystery

Ann and I were obsessed with Nancy Drew mysteries. It's very possible that we have both read every single Nancy Drew book ever written. It started in her attic, where we found a big box of her mom's books. From there, it was a contest to see who could read more, and of course, who could read faster.
Nancy Drew inspired a side of myself that I had never known. Everything was a mystery. Broken glass behind the barn that we weren't allowed to enter? Diamonds. Hidden by a murdering bandit, making his way from Myrtle Beach (where Ann vacationed) to Boston (where my Aunt lived). We obviously weren't too interested in geography.
In the barn that we were not permitted to enter, we found stacks of old books, dating back well over a hundred years. They smelled like dirt and felt like dirt and even the boys stayed clear of these little wonders.
We had our first real life mystery. Who the hell left all of these books in this dirty old barn?
After much research and several coded letters that we wrote to each other in class, we discovered the family name that had lived on our property something like a billion years ago. And wouldn't you know that the name of that family was the same name of Ann's cousins. So now we had a personal stake in this mystery.
We made a home in the attic space above the garage and made lists, bought a map, and sat up there for hours attempting to decode the mystery. I don't know why it never occured to us that these people were just very old and had died. We attempted a family tree, but only had two names: Elizabeth and Phillip. They had to be lovers. And we were pretty sure that someone was murdered. Yes, someone was surely murdered. It was the butler, in the old barn, with the pitchfork that killed dear Elizabeth while she was practising ballet on the floor above.
During the Nancy Drew craze, I have a faint memory of walking around the yard, wearing raincoats and holding umbrellas, searching for clues.
It was not raining.
We found a few nice rocks, then decided that collecting pretty rocks was in. Murder Mystery out. Just like that. We didn't even have to change costumes.

Country: The Burn Pile

I never before realized a unique privilege of country life: burn piles.

In the country, if you have an old sofa, pet bed, or pool solar cover that needs trashed, you simply lug it out to the burn pile and light a match. Sure, you probably shouldn’t be burning plastic, but it sure is fun to watch a plastic cover that once heated the pool shrivel up into a tiny ball of nothing, crackling and popping all along the way.

Got a new refrigerator and think it sucks that you have to wait a week to pitch the box? Burn it.

I think my family became addicted to this feeling, this urge, simply knowing that we didn’t need to keep garbage. In fact, the garbage collectors encourage burning. If you have more than a couple of bags by the curb/mailbox (I think I should put quotations around both of those words), they charge you more. In addition to that, you must plan ahead. So if your dishwasher stopped working on Tuesday, forcing you to purchase a new one Wednesday, the same day of garbage collection, you are totally screwed. Those collectors won’t even touch the box that your dishwasher came in. In fact, they might get so pissed at the sight of extra-unexpected garbage, they throw it in the middle of the road. Now your neighbors are pissed at you too.

We burned everything. Once, while opening the pool years and years ago in May, my Mom watched with utter confusion as my Dad threw the pool pump into the burning burn pile. They later realized he had torched the new pool pump, not the old one. Really, shame on the pool pump manufacturers for making the pumps identical. And shame on the county, because we never burned a thing before we moved here.

Burning whatever you want in the country is completely acceptable. It’s your property, so spark it up and say a prayer, those flames will die down soon, or at the very latest tomorrow morning.

Growing Up Eighties, Nature Girl

Ann and I were opposites, but we shared the same imagination. I remember getting totally pissed when she told me that animals talked to her. I was so jealous and could not understand why the animals had chosen to talk to her instead of me, the child with the uncombed hair.

Interestingly, I recently watched an old home video in which my mother asks, “Did you comb your hair today, Holly?”
“No.”
“Are you planning to comb your hair today, Holly?”
“No,” me grinning from ear to ear because I thought for a moment that because I said that I wasn’t planning to comb my hair, my Mom wouldn’t make me. The thought made me happy.
Combing my hair was hard work, and I had been covering up the gigantic knots in my tresses (Mom calls them bird’s nests when they’re small, rat’s nests when they’re big) for a few days. I would comb only the top layer of my long, curly hair. It was rustic, okay? I wasn’t the one who decided to move the family to the country.
My hair was fitting for my attitude then and I really didn’t have time for such trivial matters like grooming. I had trees to climb and animals to talk to.

After a few months in the new house, we discovered what was then, to us, the best spot on the property. The gigantic tree was nestled in the corner of the lot, down the hill and then slightly uphill from the house, surrounded by younger trees, which were nearly surrounded by the field. A man named Cash owned the field and for unknown reasons we decided he was a bad guy. Thinking back, his name alone screams villain. The Evil Cash sometimes planted corn in the field (rows and rows upon acres and acres).
We named the new spot The Big Tree because it was a big tree. We were clearly clever.

Mom: Where are you going?
Girls: The Big Tree.
Nuf said.

The problem with the Big Tree was getting Ann into it. Ann liked to paint her nails and practice ballet. She liked to braid her hair in the reverse French braid. She was seriously girly and while I was also a girl, I had taken our move to the country rather seriously myself. I was Nature Girl.
Once in the Big Tree, Ann stayed in one place, holding on for dear life, while I explored higher altitudes. Once I found a place, a conversation like this would begin.
Holly: You should jump.
Ann: I’m not jumping. You jump.
Holly: Okay.

It’s possible that my clumsiness began with that first jump. I didn’t land on my feet. In fact, I rolled, head over heels, down the hill until my head found a nice rock to rest against.
Ann (I have no idea how she got down and now I’m starting to think that she jumped and am really pissed) runs to the house to get my Mom (a thirty second run, we were always close to the house) because I might be dead. But I wasn’t dead. I just had a new theory: You don’t always have to land on your feet to live. I realize now that my philosophical tendencies began at age seven. I’m putting that on my resume. Twenty years of experience in analyzing life.

Growing Up Eighties, Games 4

When we moved out to the country for a bigger house that had its own pool, I quickly declared the bedroom with the pink carpeting mine as Chuckie took a piss off the back porch and screamed, “I’m a Countwee Boy Now!”
We weren’t permitted to ride our bikes in the street anymore because the street that we lived on was barely a street. It didn’t even have a name. It was like I had just memorized my old address 335 Duncan Station Road and now I had to memorize a new one RR what?! You know, to impress people with my intelligence. The road was speed city and I don’t think we were even permitted to think about going near the road. Yes. That was exactly what Mom said.
I remember the day we met our neighbors. In the country, you really can’t walk to a neighbor’s house. You drive. This was new for us. Mom said that they had a girl my age and a boy close to Chuckie’s age. Before I met Ann, my new best friend, I honestly believed that she would jump out of the car wearing the same Madonna t-shirt and the same blue glasses as me. That’s the way it happened with The Babysitter’s Club. She didn’t. But we were instantly best friends anyway.
We were a duo, Ann and I. And we liked to play a game we creatively named WAR. To play WAR, you need a best friend, two other players equally creatively named THE BOYS, and every single item you can get your hands on in the garage.
First, build a fort. Ann and I never really got past this part. Once a location was decided, we needed to clean it up, maybe pick some flowers for it. Then we would need food and drinks. By this point, the boys were well on their way to successfully throwing every single object from the garage into the middle of the battlefield. Rakes, hammers, brooms, dog bowls, whatever.
WAR typically ends with Mom yelling at us to put everything back where it belonged. But WAR never ends mentally. After the game is over, you must plot tactics for the next round. There are no winners, but prizes for Best Fort were sometimes awarded.

Growing Up Eighties, Games 3

Another favorite game was played in my room. It could only be played in my room because I was the privileged owner of a Rainbow Brite record player. That’s right. I had a ton of great tunes. While I enjoyed the beautiful, simply stunning voice of Rainbow Brite (I’m thinking the record probably came with the record player), my heart rested with Madonna.
We were the first to get cable television on our block and I remember dancing endlessly in front of the television set that had a chip in the glass because Chuckie had thrown one of my My Little Ponies at the screen because I refused to allow him to kill it with his GI Joe. My Little Pony doesn’t die, I said. New Rule.
MTV blasted from our living room as I ran across the brown sectional, leaping into the air and landing on my feet so I could play air guitar.
The game was called Dance Your Face Off, Destroy Your Room. Or, it should have been. To play DYFODYR, simply play Madonna’s Lucky Star from your Rainbow Brite record player, jump on your bed, and throw all of your toys and belongings all over your room. I believe that this game inspired So You Think You Can Dance and I occasionally play a tamer, more adult version of this game at weddings by requesting that the Jazz Band play Anything Madonna and slide across the floor, choreographing lyrical dances.
Tragically, DYFODYR came to an end when a neighbor sat on my record player to see if she would spin around like the cartoons. She didn’t. That was the day the music died for me.

Growing Up Eighties, Games 2

Another favorite game was Riding Horses. To play Riding Horses, you need a bike (preferably one without training wheels as the extra wheels made it difficult for others to imagine your bike as a horse. Duh), a name for your horse and a stable (garages, front porches and shade can qualify as stables, as long as you have your own).
To start the game, you need at least one other person. If you play this game by yourself you immediately subject yourself to ridicule and a lifetime a nicknames that will haunt you until your dying day. Once you have another person, start Riding Horses. For purposes of remaining superior, you CAN change the name of your horse in the middle of the game but only if someone else has a better name and you want to one up them. The game ends when Mom calls you in for dinner. When Mom calls you in for dinner, it is proper Riding Horses etiquette to ask if everyone playing can stay for dinner.
I remember, before I was comfortable riding without training wheels, my Dad running next to my training wheel-less bike (purple, with a unicorn on the bars and banana seat) attempting to coach me into freedom. Back and forth on the road we practiced for hours. I was terrified.
In the garage, unbeknownst to anyone, Chuckie grabbed a wrench and proceeded to detach his training wheels. Did I mention that he was nearly four years younger than me? He wasn’t afraid. He was ready to ride.
We were in front of the house, Mom on the porch, Dad running behind me on the bike, when Chuckie passed me, announcing with his speech impediment that he taken the Twaining Wheews off his bike. How? Wid a Wench.

Growing Up Eighties, Chuckie's Revenge

When I had my tonsils removed it was a big deal. My parents were terrified and sick with worry. I was the first child. The guinea pig. With Chuckie, it would be easier.
I remember coming home after the surgery and sitting in the living room. My dad was holding me in his lap and my mom was telling Chuckie that I probably didn’t feel like playing and probably wouldn’t for a little while. He was, at first, and assumingly, excited to see me. Who wouldn’t be? That’s what I was thinking because when you’re a kid everyone treats you like a superstar in the hospital.
There were books all over the floor. There is a possibility that they weren’t books. Maybe they were cards. It doesn’t really matter what they were, because two seconds after my mom told my brother that I was sick, he started wailing books/cards/weapons of death at my throat. Uncontrollably, as I remember it.
My mom will probably say that Chuckie was upset that I couldn’t play. That he threw a tantrum. But I still believe that this act was his revenge. He knew I was down and he knew that was the only way he could defeat me.

Growing Up Eighties, Chuckie, 5

The fifth attempt on Chuckie’s life, as every attempt, started innocent enough. We were in the dining room, counting loose change and making rolls that we would later take to the bank and cash in for money to spend at the arcade when we went on vacation the following week.

The cartoon DuckTales was my current favorite. At the beginning of DuckTales, Scrooge McDuck, Uncle Scrooge, would dive into a silo filled with gold coins and swim in it. Great timing, DuckTales. Watch the introduction to DuckTales here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34Sb0hGUNIQ

Believing that I could create a real life version of the above scene with the forty dollars in loose change that was spread out on the dining room floor, Chuckie and I attempted to swim through the coin. No. We didn’t have enough. I asked Mom for more and she gave me what was in her purse. We still didn’t have enough. It wasn’t about the money. It was about wanting to know what it felt like to swim through coins. Yeah. I wish I still felt the same way today.

Realizing that we weren’t going to accomplish a recreation of the DuckTales beginning, I instructed Chuckie to lie on the floor, face up. My plan was to throw ALL of the coin up into the air so that Chuckie could then tell me what it felt like to have his face pelted with coins. Honestly, I have no idea what I was thinking.

Chuckie started laughing right before I threw ALL of the coin into the air. And then he stopped laughing. He started choking uncontrollably. A bunch of coins made a new home in Chuckie’s throat.

Mom called Poison Control, embarrassingly, again.

We went to the hospital for this one, too.

It is fair to say that at this point in our young lives, my mother was probably terrified that child protection services was after her. But there was no way to stop us.

Growing Up Eighties, Chuckie, 4

The fourth attempt on Chuckie’s life took a new form. I had recently discovered things that smelled good: my mom’s deodorant, cough syrup, and Safeguard soap. I was a scientist. This was the time of Mr. Wizard. We were all scientists.

My theory was this: if something smells good, it must also taste good. I tried the safest good-smelling thing on myself. I mean, I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.

In the tub, I grabbed a bar of Safeguard soap and shoved it right into my mouth. A waxy sensation covered my tongue as the soap quickly made its way to the back of my mouth and I started gagging. All in all, not too bad. I was still alive and I decided that the smell of Safeguard soap was better than the taste.

I hired Chuckie as my assistant. For pay, he was permitted to follow me around.
After I convinced him to eat the deodorant, my Mom caught wind of our testing and the experiments came to a squealing stop as she dialed the number for Poison Control.

“My son ate a stick of deodorant.”

And he was still alive.

Growing Up Eighties, Games 1

I’m sure that every generation is envious of the younger generation’s toys. I am. Sure, I had Barbies that combed their own hair and My Little Ponies that had growing tails. But things were different. We relied heavily on our imaginations for every toy and game we played.

Take one of my favorite games: Throw Pinecones at Passing Cars.

At the old house, we had two large pine trees in the front yard. We lived on the corner lot and the favored pine tree rested in the corner. Its branches were low enough that a secret hiding place was inevitable. There wasn’t a stop sign on the road because the road just made a sharp turn to the left. Or, this was before people thought stop signs were necessary. I was six. Details like why there weren’t stop signs didn’t enter my mind. All I knew, and all I cared about was this: the lack of a stop sign made Throw Pinecones at Passing Cars much more challenging.

We weren’t just kids. We were army generals and princesses and kings. Every single one of us had a unique magic power that changed hourly and was always in competition with the super powers of the other kids. Pinecones weren’t pinecones. They were grenades and arrows and other weapons. This story will prove that pinecones can be weapons, even if you don’t pretend they are something else.

So, we’re covered in sap, laying low under the corner pine tree. A car passes. Neighbor One throws grenade and misses. At this point in the game, we are already at war and defending our territory. Things were gonna have to get messy.

Another passes and Neighbor Two throws too early. Risky, considering our secret hiding place and imaginary war zone would soon be public knowledge.

A third car, bright red. Shiny convertible. And from what I know now, man with emotional issues going through mid-life crisis.

I throw the pinecone, chanting to myself because I was now a wizard. Magical powers and spells were the only way we were going to win this war.

Direct hit! The pinecone not only hit the car, it dropped into the car, causing the already emotional driver to slam on his brakes right in front of our faces.

A part of me was proud. I was magic. The direct pinecone hit was obviously accomplished because of my magical handiwork. The other part was terrified as the enraged driver jumped out of his shiny car and proceeded to scream at every one of us.

He alerted us to the danger we were causing, saying that someone was going to die because of our stupid game. The kids, including myself, started crying and my Mom ran outside, grounding me and sending everyone else home to think about what they did. We were in trouble, big trouble.

Growing Up Eighties, Chuckie, 3

The third unintentional attempt on Chuckie’s life took place that same year. Room: Basement. Weapon Used: The Lead Pipe. Suspect: Yours Truly. Again. And this one looks much worse than it is written out as a Clue Spoof. I take that back. This was the worst. Naaa. Second worst. Maybe third.

We liked to start marching bands. My neighbor and I combined our two Playskool drum sets so that we could have a Marching Band Symphony. We were marching around the house and neighborhood, proudly playing every instrument (tambourine, drum and Kazoo) in the set. Our band had an age limit. Chuckie was too young to join, but he was trying desperately, chasing us around the block and onto neighboring porches.

We marched into the house and through the kitchen, turned left to make our way into the basement, where we would start our parade over from the garage.

During this time, Chuckie managed to take apart a basketball set for a pipe, which he was pretending was a trumpet.

Not wanting to end the parade so soon with fighting and knowing that we had another round to make we quickly slid into the garage, we ignored Chuckie’s trumpet.

The door between the garage and basement was a death trap, like everything in the Eighties. It opened from the basement and swung into the garage, quickly snapping itself back into place.
My neighbor led the way through the door. Not wanting to put any of my three instruments down to hold the door (we were part of a parade, after all) I quickly leapt into the garage, the door slamming behind me and in front of Chuckie, pipe in mouth.

Ironically, he must have been playing the trumpet with his eyes closed (proving that this is his fault again. If he closed his eyes when he was supposed to, two attempts could have been avoided) because he walked right into the closed door, lodging the pipe down his throat.

We went to the emergency room for this one.

Growing Up Eighties, Chuckie, 2

The second unintentional attempt on Chuckie’s life took place three years later. Room: the bedroom upstairs. Weapon Used: Afghan. Suspect: Yours Truly.

We were playing hide and seek and Chuckie was cheating, as always. We had limited space, so to make the game more challenging, I demanded that the seeker (always Chuckie. I was bossy) must keep their eyes closed. So there I was, hiding in my tiny closet with the door slightly ajar. Peeking through the gap, I saw Chuckie, eyes open. And he wasn’t even supposed to start looking for me yet. I was counting to ten, on seven, when he walked into my room, eyes open, arms straight in front of his body to keep with the illusion of his eyes being closed.
That’s it.

“New Rule!” I stomped out of the closet.

The seeker (again, always Chuckie) had to wear a blanket over their head to prevent cheating.

In my defense, if Chuckie weren’t such a cheater, the second attempt on Chuckie’s life would have never taken place. Of course, the third attempt would have become the second, and so on. Still, I would have accumulated fewer attempts.

The afghan was scratchy, full of the colors of the seventies and matched the couch in the living room that would later reside in my first apartment, second apartment, and second apartment dumpster after we had to hack it into parts to get it out the door after graduation. It was orange, brown, tan and black.

With the afghan in place, Chuckie was liberated from his cheating past, and I didn’t really care if he started looking for me at the count of seven instead of ten, because he was never going to find me.

I heard noises (from the closet again. There weren’t many places to hide) and ran from the closet to find my brother, still covered in the afghan, at the bottom of the stairs.

Growing Up Eighties, Chuckie, 1

My brother is nearly four years younger than me, so it is fair to say that when he was born, I had every right to think of him as an extended edition to my Cabbage Patch Doll collection.

He was the perfect size. I wanted to line him up with my dolls and have a tea party. Some of the other dolls objected. Typically, I made the blonde dolls object because I was a brunette and the blondes were always the instigators. They didn’t want to have a boy at the party, so we all settled for a bow on his head. He was now decidedly more feminine. The bow was easy to find. The back of Mom’s closet in the basket that held the Christmas wrapping paper and bows and generic cards that read Happy Birthday and were completely blank inside.

As a baby, and because of his similarities to my dolls, I had a hard time understanding his fragility. Baby swings in the Eighties were not as safe as swings today. Actually, nothing was safe.

I was playing with my My Little Ponies in the living room. Mom was sewing, or at least I remember her sewing. And Chuckie was gingerly swaying back and forth in his Death Swing. He was tiny, premature, so he kept sliding and it bothered me. Why couldn’t he just keep his head up? I was annoyed.

The phone rang. This is before, um, cordless phones. So Mom runs into the kitchen, giving me about thirty seconds to fix the problem with Chuckie’s lazy head.

From my four-year-old tool belt, I pulled a jump rope. Yes. I’m a genius. Looping the jump rope around his neck, I tossed the plastic handles over the top of the Death Swing and tied a knot. Just before I could test my solution to the Chuckie’s Lazy Head Problem, my mom runs into the living room, screaming “OH MY GOD!” and I ran upstairs into my bedroom, crying, sobbing hysterically. For the record, I wasn’t trying to kill him. I wasn’t an evil child. And I wish that the Death Swing story were the only of it’s kind.