The Trouble With Having Over An Active Imagination

Kids do crazy things. Looking back at my childhood there were a few things I did then, as a kid that were very traumatic at the time, which are are now, simply funny to me. I think I had too much time alone on my hands, combined with an over active imagination, resulting in me getting into some trouble of one kind or another, but I believe having an over active imagination it is also the reason I am a creative.

Seems a lot of these incidents involved me being in the bathroom. The earliest memory was when I was about the age of three or four, I had a black ball or what is often called a jaw breaker in my mouth, melted down to the smallest size and proceeded to stick it into my ear. I stood on top of the toilet looking into the bathroom mirror, announcing to my mother the candy was gone. Next thing I knew, I was shoved into the back of a car sitting between three fat women, hauled off to the doctor, who fortunately for me, but painfully, removed the black ball.

Then there was the ping-pong net clamp I couldn't get off my wrist, imagining I was a doctor performing an important procedure. Once I realized I couldn't get it off my wrist and after telling my older brother, he informed me I'd have to have my arm removed. That went over really well with me, and I continued to cry until my mother arrived home from work when she managed to get it loose.

I was about ten, when I found the out door hand pump, had three holes in it that was very enticing to me, so I stuck my middle finger in the middle hole and couldn't get it out. My father told me he'd have to get the fire department to remove it or go around the rest of my life with a an outdoor hand pump dragging from my hand.

I shaved off my left eyebrow around the same age and then figured I'd maybe try putting a band-aid on the missing brow or perhaps two band-aids, just so I'd have a match. Finally deciding this was not going to work and I needed to tell my mother what I'd done hoping she wouldn't be too cross. She was rather upset and I went running upstairs to my room whaling my head off, pleading with her not to tell dad. She told me to be quiet and stop my balling or she would tell my father.

Next day my mother drew an eyebrow on me, and I went off to school. She must have done a great job because no one seemed to notice, or perhaps they did and were too nice to say anything, probably thinking I had a weird eyebrow. It's a good thing eyebrows grow back and I inherited my mother's nicely formed eyebrows, because I have never felt the need or wanted to remove them since.