Your Punishment: BUUUUUURN!

Whoa! Where have I been? Dude, it's summer! And not one of my two followers was knocking down my digital front door to get more postage on this blog. So I didn't really care. But I'm back. With more stories of epic childhood memories.
Call your mom - yay! Moms love me!

And I love moms.

I find it hilarious when little kids or animals are bad; relieving themselves where they're not supposed to or breaking valuable things or talking / barking back. Too funny! I probably find it to be this way because I am not troubled by either of these little creatures. (It's for a reason!!!) And further, how are you really supposed to punish a kid or animal anyway? I wouldn't hit them or yell at them ever and they're way too cute and innocent - well usually. I get lost in their awesome grub-nosed faces and it melts my rage away. For real!

I spent this past weekend at Shmenna Shmeider's house (I hope you read this 'cause you're the shiiiiit!) and her wonderful namesake bark friend, Shmapple Shmunior, must have went on the carpet, uh, like way too many times. Once is enough for me when it comes to my own home. And it was so exasperating. And it was in the same relative space so walking through this one part of the house was like trying to dodge wet mine fields (if they were real, I would have left Sunday with two stubs for legs). And the mounting tension and frustration I could feel welling up like a motherfucker in my friend, but all I could do, because it was...uh...all I could do, was think 'how bad AND how adorable Shmapple is!' because I could simply leave the house and not care beyond the day. Out of sight!

Well, kid punishments. I experienced a very few of these growing up, and definitely not like the 'go to your room', 'go sit in a corner', 'no tv for a week'. In fact, I don't even think I've ever been grounded. In FACT!, I don't think the thing that I consider to be the hugest, crazy punishment really was a punishment. But it sucked, made me want to act 'good' and lasted just long enough to make me think that life couldn't get much worse beyond that period in life: I was sent to Catholic School when I was 8.

So I used to get picked on a lot as a young kid. I think more so because I was a tomboy - born and raised (go dad) - and boys are weird. So are girls I guess. But I was the only girl playing soccer with the boys at recess. I was the only girl talking about video games. I was the only girl building shit and learning to be manly with her dad. Aside from a general interest in "boy" activities, I was an overachiever and know-it-all in class and teacher's pet, but also a weird smart ass. What I'm really trying to say is that I pissed a lot of people off in school. My parents thought it would be good to move me to Catholic School, which in turn would provide a safer, Christian-oriented structure *le sigh*

My dad and I went to our Church, Shrine of the Little Flower, enough as was. We seriously spent two days there each week. Saturday my dad sat in a little temple...maybe SHRINE, who fucking knows, for an hour doing uh, devotions? Hail Marys? I have no clue. But it was torture. And I would watch the clock and try to time the next number flipping at a minute for the full hour. Also there was a plaque under a jesus statue upstairs and it said "I love you this much" and I found out what that was supposed to mean (It's cause his arms are open wide and that's how he was on the cross - that jesus is a hoot!) We did this every Saturday. Barf city. And then mass on Sunday. Which was okay because ocassionally we'd hit up International House of Pancakes and I'd get the plate of food that they arranged to look like a cute face or Radio Shack and play Pitfall on like an Amiga or some archaic computer device thang.

I begged my dad for years to let me watch church on television.
You know, like on the cable access channels.
Never happened.

So I already had waaaaaay too much exposure to church and now I was going to go to school there. So maybe you're seeing how it was like being sent to hell. Oh! My teacher sucked soooo much ass. Her name was Ms. Mazur (I'd swear she wasn't married because she was so repulsive that no one would want to marry her, but I'm sure it's because she was a nun. Sucker!). She did three horribly awful things to me that made me want to die. But I'm sure she did them in the name of God.

- She told me I couldn't write in cursive. Not because I was spelling things wrong or my letters were off or there was a problem with the legibility. NO! She said I couldn't write in cursive because you didn't learn to write in cursive until 4th grade and I was in 3rd. Oh my god. Deathwish cometh.

- She put me on a desk island. Not even a desk peninsula! So you know how you got assigned seats yaddah daddah? well, she put out a new chart a month into the school year and I was in the far corner by myself. It wasn't like she was going to move someone near me or that there were lots of kids that were isolated from the other kids. just me. what the fuck? Seriously, i remember being really bummed about that.

- Colored stars. Fuck stars. That is the most passive agressive shitty thing you can do to a kid. I never ONCE got a gold star. Rarely did I even get a star. And I know I was close to being the smartest, nicest kid in that class. If I ever 'earned' a star, it was only blue or green which basically indicated you were capable of breathing on your own and hadn't cried in the presence of others. I hate stars.

But then I was truly blessed. God delivered me from evil and we moved our asses back to Minnesota only 2 months into the school year. Oh man. I was really thrilled. I did eventually go back to Catholic school in 10th grade (and that really was a punishment), but at least I was a bit braced for what was coming. They had these fresh baked cookies...holy shit...they really were manna from heaven.

And I only had to do a trimester - thank God.