Awww shite. When I was a teenager, my parents called me Miss Wanderlust (which makes the fact that I’m such an agoraphobe today all the weirder), since I would wander out the door in the morning, and not be seen again for… days, often months. I would return home, usually, just late at night. They trusted me, since I usually told them roughly where I’d be, and small towns being what they are, figured they’d hear if I were getting into any serious trouble. Ha. Sometimes I snuck out my bedroom window in the middle of the night, just because I couldn’t sleep and I felt confined.
Anyway, I used to be quite a little skate punk. One day I was in town with my skateboard, early in the morning, and I was showing off for a bunch of friends. There was this awesome hill in the alley between the bank and the insurance company (just… never mind). Anyway, the hill was pretty steep, paved, and at the very bottom was a guardrail, and a very steep dropoff to the river below. You know what’s coming, don’t you?
I shot off down that hill, getting pretty good speed. Now, at the bottom, it levelled off nicely, and this is where I had big plans to pull off a frontside 180 ollie, and shove off to relative safety just short of hitting the guardrail. Oh, ho ho! Not so, say the fates. You see, I get to the bottom, and I’m going way too damn fast. I slam my foot down on the rear of my skateboard and jump, lifting into a regular ollie… and something happens. I get confused. I don’t remember why. Did someone call my name? Am I amazed I pulled the ollie off while going so fast, when normally I wouldn’t have? Am I suddenly struck by how foolish this particular stunt was? I don’t know. I don’t remember. I remember the feeling of being airborne, lifted, weightless, and the feeling of sudden joy I had, thinking I’d just pulled off the most beautiful thing anyone had ever witnessed.
These thoughts all occurred in a matter of nanoseconds. Back in reality, I and my board were both soaring gracefully over the guardrail, and beginning our plummet on the other side. 20 feet down. No joke.
I survived, obviously. I didn’t break anything. I landed in some nice, soft, prickly bushes just short of the riverbank. I was bruised up really fucking bad. I bled profusely from several places for a while. My left arm has never been quite right since, but isn’t too bad.
I staggered home that night, with a couple large gashes in my face, a bloody, swollen lip, a giant green/black/purple/blue/rainbow coloured bruise on most of my left arm, and other giant bruises and gashes that were more easily covered up by my clothes. And quite an impressive limp. I managed to sneak into my room before my mother noticed I was home, shut my door and leaned against it. Moments later, I heard footsteps in the hallway.
“Stasia, was that you?” she calls.
“Yeah, Mom.”
“Okay. Just checking to see if you’re still alive in there.”
Cut to me standing there in my torn clothes, filthy face and bloody lip. Yeah, Mom. I’m alive. I hid out for months until I was mostly healed. My mother did see my arm a while later, and asked what in the world had happened to it, and I told her I tripped on the sidewalk and banged my arm up a bit. She bought it.
Then there was the time all of our parents warned us to never, ever, EVER cross the border after one friend got his licence. We immediately crossed the border and drove to Bangor, Maine, which was about a three hour drive into the States (I’m from Canada, but grew up near the border). They never found out.
When I babysat my little brother, I used to spray Pam cooking spray all over the kitchen floor, and we would skate around on it (we had a ginormous kitchen). Then we would tie soapy sponges to our feet and skate around some more to clean it all up. My mother used to compliment me on how clean I kept the floors, and my brother still says I was the best babysitter ever.
There was that other time, when I started a pumpkinhead cult, which required all members to wear pumpkins for heads. As the leader, I was to be carted around town by my minions in an abandoned shopping cart. Things got out of hand one evening, as I was commanding one of my prophets to push the cart faster, until finally, exhausted, he let go, and I went hurtling into the street, past the town pump, onto the sidewalk slope, thrown from the cart until I rolled into the side of the post office. My pumpkinhead broke open, exposing the little mistress of oz inside, dazed and pulpy. I shudder to think what would have happened if I hadn’t been wearing that pumpkin on my head. Since my nickname was already Peanut in highschool, they added “Pumpkinhead” to the end of it as a sign of reverence. This went on for years. Don’t tell my mother, though. The stunt in the shopping cart wouldn’t faze her. It’s the cult thing: “Cults are for bad people! Come with me, I’m taking you back to church!” Nooooooooooo! :eek:
Some things they are better off not knowing. Ever. Though my father did overhear my friends calling me Peanut Pumpkinhead one day. He wasn’t concerned at all about where the name might have come from. He thought it was kind of cute. From that day on, he called me P. P. Head.
