Over the weekend, we traveled down to Columbus for some local tourism fun. My mom came with us.During the ride south, Scott and Evan began asking her about my claims of how ABNQ existence always has been and always will be. She vouched for me, even citing key examples of my early Almost...But Not Quite days.
(NOTE: The following stories are a mere sampling...there are more than this. Trust me.)
It started from birth. I showed up precisely 1 month and 1 day early. My mother's water broke in the middle of a Roy Rogers restaurant. My father proceeded to throw his sandwich back at the cashier across the counter and ran like a fool out to the car. At some point during this process, it occurred to him that if my mom had me in the car (a dark blue VW Beetle) they could win a $50 savings bond. Mom then noted he went berzerk and hell bent on getting to the hospital and promptly forgot about the savings bond.
When I was 5 months old, my mother lost me in the house. One minute I was there. She turned her back for a moment. And the next, I was gone. Nowhere to be found. Turns out, unbeknownst to her, I had learned to roll. And, I took advantage of this new talent to roll under the sofa. She found me when she heard a baby's chuckle coming from underneath the upholstery.
At the age of 8 months, dressed up for Easter in a white, beribboned dress and lace tights, I crawled into the fireplace. No fire. But plenty of ashes. Soot-covered baby from head to toe.
Around the same age, I was tooling around the house in my baby walker -- this monstrous, dome-like contraption. Again, one minute my mother saw a baby. The next -- just an empty walker. Turns out I stuck both legs into one leg opening, crawled down inside and got stuck. Only I didn't know I was stuck. I apparently thought I was just hanging out and enjoying some new scenery for a change of pace.My mother determined after a few moments that she could not release me alone and had to call our next door neighbor, Tillie, to come over and help her jimmy me back out of the thing.
Age 17 months. I got a motorized car for Christmas. A few days later, I was riding around on it and spied a bowl of oranges. Grabbed one before my mother could stop me, took a huge bite out of it...peel and all...and immediately proceeded to lean over and barf all through the car's engine. It never worked right again.
At the age of nearly 2 years old, in a matter of an hour, I dropped both a cement brick on my toe and stepped on broken glass.
The summer I turned 5, we took our camper out west. I had one pair of shoes with me. A pair of red Keds. My favorite. As we were wading in the Colorado river, I somehow managed to knock one of my shoes into the mini-rapids and it quickly started flowing down river while I stood there bawling like an idiot. My father ran like a fool and managed to rescue my shoe. The next day , we went to a K-Mart and bought a second pair.
That same summer, and same trip, we were at Knotts Berry Farm. Dad bought us huge cups of Sprite, much to our delight. We then went and got primo spots for the evening's fireworks as we sipped our treats. I drank my drink and then needed to pee. (yes, I had issues back then, too, thank you very much). My parents liked our spot and asked me if I could hold it. I knew I couldn't but said I could so we could keep our good spot. Shortly thereafter, as it started getting dark, I wet my pants all over place... including on the girl next to me's foot. I was wearing a little stretchy polyester shorts set, and I still can remember how gross and itchy peed-on polyester pull-on shorts can be.
In first grade, they told me I won the science fair for my grade. My dad and I had made dyes out of various flowers and berries and such. I ran home having visions of becoming a famous scientist. By the time I got home, my mom was waiting for me to announce the school had called and said they made a mistake. I didn't win. Instead this mean kid I didn't like did. I was crushed...and ended my scientific career there and then.
That same year, the spring of 1976, a month or so later, I was at my parents' friends' house. They were babysitting my sister and me. The other kids were getting on my nerves so I nimbly climbed their giant tree in the backyard to hide out from everyone. I heard one of the grownups calling me, so I figured I'd better climb down and make myself known. In the process of doing this, my foot slipped, and I fell a good five feet to the ground and broke my arm in two places (and also knocked the wind out of myself...I still remember how that felt. UGH.) I had a plaster cast up to my shoulder for three months. And the kicker...I got chicken pox while I was wearing the cast.
This is just a snapshot of my early ABNQ life. I could keep writing for hours. But I wanted to share these tales for those of you who sometimes ask if my tales really are true. They are, and both of my parents could regale you with story after story for hours on end. I was born this way, and I'm fairly certain when my time is up, I'll do it with Almost...But Not Quite panache.
