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You know when you think back about something that happened when you were a child and it makes you laugh, but then you laugh even harder when you remember it wasn't so funny when it happened? I find myself doing this a lot. I don't know what actually triggers my reminiscing, but it always a pleasure to end up with a good laugh at my own expense.
The other day I was talking to my grandmother and she reminded me of a perfect example. I had just started kindergarten, and my family lived on a huge orange tree farm in central California. Every day I would sit at the end of our long driveway and wait for the school bus to drop off my cousin from school. One day I fell asleep under the huge eucalyptus tree and by the time the bus arrived, I was covered head to toe in biting red ants. The bus driver found me lying there with the little insects crawling all over me. He had to carry me, still half asleep, confused, and of course, very itchy, up to the house with my cousin trotting behind. I had more itchy, red, swollen bites than I knew how to count and from that day on, I waited for my cousin in the safety of the main house.
At about five years old, I was at an amusement park with my dad and I had to use the restroom. Since I was five, I told my dad that I was old enough to go in to the women's restroom on my own. When I had finished, I had somehow gone out of a different exit from the one at which my dad was waiting for me outside. When I didn't see him, I sat on the curb, put my head in my hands, and started crying. My newly finished dolphin and swirly heart and ribbon face paint was all smeared and I was a wreck. After a few minutes, my dad started calling for me. When I heard his voice, I went around the side of the building and we were reunited. At the time, I was petrified that I had been lost or abandoned, but now, that story, too, is just another laugh.
As I continued to think about my childhood, I remembered a few times in grade school that make me laugh now, but at the time, weren't too funny. In third grade, our teacher made us line up alphabetically by our last names. Mine is Bonner, and the girl who lined up in front of me was named Jaime Ball. One day after lunch recess, we were all lined up and ready to go into the classroom. I was turned around in line talking to the person behind me when Jaime decided to pick me up around the waist and she dropped me flat on my rear. Not only did it hurt tremendously, I was caught off guard and was very embarrassed. Acting on my first instinct, I stood up, turned around and hit her over the head with my metal "The Dark Crystal" lunchbox! Of course, she started crying, and I was crying and we were both sent to Principal Manning's office. Since neither of us had ever been sent to the office, we were now crying even harder, begging the principal not to call our moms. The "fight" was completely out of our minds and now we were just afraid of the trouble we would get into at home! We were instead both given ice packs for our "injuries" and sent back to our classroom. To this day I don't think I ever told my mom about the time I got into a fight in third grade.
When I was about eight years old, I was in my front yard playing "Harry Houdini" with a boy from down the street. He told me that if I tied him to the tree he would surely be able to get out. He was the neighborhood bully, and I should have known better, but I was up to the challenge. Of course I had tied him up so thoroughly that the rope was beginning to dig into his fat little wrists. He couldn't get himself untied, and he started crying for me to help him. I got a pair of scissors from the garage and as soon as I untied him, he caught me off guard, socked me in the stomach, and ran home! I was too afraid to laugh then, but now I realize I can.
As I grew older, I continued to build memories that would create future laughs. When I was about nine, my grandfather owned one of the only two gas stations in town. One afternoon, my sister, my cousin and I dressed up in disguises composed of wigs and hats from my grandmother's closet, and we went into the station to try to cash a check that we had found on the kitchen table. We thought it was a great plan to get some cash so that we could go across the street to the bowling alley and play video games. It didn't work for a number of obvious reasons. First of all we were three little kids in drag. Secondly, we were straight faced and serious as I stretched to reach the counter and hand the cashier, who was my grandfather, a check made out from him to the electric company. We didn't get in trouble for the stunt, and we couldn't understand why our parents were laughing so much, but still wouldn't give us any money to go play videos. Now I get it.
That same summer, my two partners in crime and I were in the garage at my house. We were playing "Indiana Jones." Seems harmless enough, doesn't it? Wait until I explain our game. My sister and I were on roller skates; we were both Indiana Jones. My cousin was at the controls of the automatic garage door opener; he was in charge of making the "stone wall" lower after we had "stolen the golden idol." We would skate into the garage, grab the rock, turn around and try to skate back out under the garage door just in the nick of time. If only our parents had known what we were doing! Anyway, my sister didn't quite make it one time. She was on her way out and fell on her back. My cousin and I were still inside the garage, and as the door closed, all we could see was her head while the door closed on her neck! To this day, I'm not sure if it was my cousin's quick reflex on the button, or the automatic obstruction sensor on the garage door itself that saved my sister (of course my cousin takes all of the credit), but either way, it sure wasn't funny then, but we can laugh about it now.
In fifth grade, my class had a cake contest and my best friend and I were both convinced that we would take the prize. We rushed home that afternoon and searched our mothers' cookbooks for the perfect recipe. We found the one that was sure to steal the show and planned a weekend of baking.
While sifting through the cookbooks, we had found a recipe for lollipops and thought that it would be really cool if we made our own lollipops to hand out to the class. We cooked for what seemed like an eternity that Sunday, and by the end of the night, we had a grey, rubbery substance that we called our cake and sixty lollipops in the unmistakable flavor of …burnt. Not one of our lollipops turned out the way they looked like in the pictures, not to mention our cake that looked like it should be on display at a natural history museum. The day of the contest, we spared the judges the taste test, and saved ourselves from humiliation as we decided to not enter the contest at all. My friend and I laugh about it today, and we each blame the other for that baking catastrophe. Neither of us can cook to this day, so I think that the culinary arts are something that you are born with.
When I reminisce and look back at all of these times, I not only laugh at the situations themselves, but also at the exaggerated, unnecessary feelings that I had. Thinking about those feelings makes me appreciate how truly innocent my friends and I were as children. Our actions were harmless and most of the time comical, while our reactions to their consequences were priceless and forever etched in our memories. While certain incidents may have been scary, or sad, or maddening in the eyes of a child, in the eyes of an adult they are precious memories that deserve a chuckle.
Permission to publish is granted by the author
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