Have you ever broken the law?
Have you committed any transgressive acts, things that society would frown upon if not incarcerate you? What motivated you?  Were there repercussions?  Create a scene in which you are committing that act.  How did it change your life?  How did you feel?  Be as honest as you can about your emotional state before, during, and after the incident.

I have to be careful what I say here, the World Wide Interwebs is a big place with lots of people lurking.  Also, as part of my parole agreement my parole officer frequents my blog. [waving]

The bodies are hidden well, the witnesses have been silenced and you can’t prove anything.  What I will share, however, is the time I had a warrant out for my arrest.

When I was younger the car I always wanted was a Honda CRX.  In my early 20s I got one and loved it.  It’s the car I always think about and wish I still had.  I traded it in when I could get an awesome price for it which was smart, but I feel a little empty without it.

On a road trip in that car I may or may not have been testing the limits of speed, and I may or may not have gotten it up to 120mph.  What a rush (you know, if it had ever happened)!  I could have gone faster but in all honesty I was afraid of cops lurking, so I slowed down to a respectable 79 in a 65 mph zone and followed a beat up station wagon with plates of the state I happened to be in at the time.

Lulling along I became aware of red lights flashing behind me, surely it wasn’t for me; I moved over, the lights followed me, confused I slowed down, so did the lights.  Finally I pulled over and if you can believe it so did the cop!  He swaggered over to my car, I rolled the window down, and he said:

Cop: “do you know how fast you were going?”
Me: “before I answer that, why did you pull ME over and not the car I was following?”
Cop: “what car?”
Me: “[pointing] “that car speeding away.”
Cop: [taking a thoughtful moment] “because you were gaining on him.”

WHAAAA?  I’d been following it for miles.

Me: “did you clock me?”
Cop: “yes”
Me: “show me.”

I know, right?  I was a little sh!t, wasn’t I?

The cop did not body slam me to the ground at that point, tho I’ll bet the thought did cross his mind.  He walked me back to his car, pointed out that I was, indeed, going 79 and I hung my head and walked back to the car.

He wrote me a ticket, which I fully intended to fight, even if I had to go back to the unnamed state to do it.  I was in pace with the beat up car from his state, yet he pulled over the sports car from a different state, oh the injustice!

I patiently waited for my summons to appear before a judge to plead my case, but nothing ever came.  Yay, I must be off the hook, and then I promptly forgot all about the ticket.  Until….one day a certified letter came for me.  It went something like this:

Dear cimblog(tm):

Thank you for traveling our lovely state.  You may remember on [this date] you were issued a ticket for speeding at mile marker [number] by one of our lovely officers of the law.  We have not received your $120 fine payment.  Consequently, that fine is now $250 and should we ever see your face in our lovely state again there is a warrant out for your arrest and we will throw your butt in our lovely pokey.

Sincerely,
The Man

Well.I.NEVER!  What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty?  Were the laws different in this state?  Guilty until proven innocent?  I was furious, I wanted my rights, I had been done a WRONG!  And I told them so…with my check to clear my name.  Hey, I knew when I’d been beat, but I did get the last word!  So there!

I love this picture from Girls’ Camp.

What was your first day at middle school like?
Some say “The Awkward Age” starts at 12 and ends with dead.  Did you feel lonely or unhappy making that important transition from childhood to teenage years?  Was there anything or anybody who made it easier?

I went to Matilija Jr. High School for 7^th and 8^th grade.  There is really only one thing I remember about my first day at middle school; my mom wouldn’t let me wear shorts.

I desperately wanted to wear shorts my first day at Matilija.  A couple of days earlier I had been riding my bike home from the other side of town, no-handed of course because that’s how cool I was!  At an intersection a car turned in front of me which caused me to do a weird herky-jerky movement to try to get my hands on the handlebars to gain control.  I was half successful.  My hands did land on the handlebars just as I went flying off the bike.  I hit the ground with a thud and skidded into an old oak tree.  Even at that young, tender, awkward age, the first thing through my head was, “how can I get up from this and still look cool?”  Turns out I couldn’t, I could only be embarrassed and jump on my bike to ride the mile home as if nothing happened.

This was how uncool I looked though; I had to hold my hands at a 45 degree angle just to go straight because I’d bent my handlebars.  On top of that, blood was running down my leg and dripping off my foot (Hansel and Gretel had nothing on me!) causing my foot to continue to slip out of my flip-flop.  Oh yeah, no one cooler than me!

I wanted to wear shorts to show off my awesome injury.  I thought that might give me an advantage so people could see how tough and cool I was, lets face it I needed all the help I could get.  Also, I didn’t want pants rubbing on it, truth be told…it hurt…a lot.  No such luck, I wore pants.  My mom was a tyrant.

Other random middle school memories:

My math teacher, if someone was not paying attention, would huck erasers at students.  He had deadly accuracy.

My art teacher had a sense of humor.  We sat in groups–she sat me in a group with Rosemary and Ginger.  (If you know me, you’ll see the humor in that.)

My English teacher could not hear out of her right ear.  Everyone wanted to sit on that side of the room.

Bubble gum was a hot commodity.  You could purchase a pack for 50c and sell each piece for 25c, that’s like 150% ROI.  I made a killing.

My History teacher was…very, very large.  She was also mean, I suspect because she was unhappy.  Once, I finished reading my current events newspaper and she told me to read it again because I couldn’t have possibly read it as fast as [this other student].  I had.  I didn’t read it again, I just looked at the pictures.

Troy Peterson snorted powder sugar.

I skied in New Mexico with my uncle and got a t-shirt saying so, when I wore it everyone said, “There’s no snow in Mexico.”

I’ve always wanted to write my own memoir.  I mean, if 16 year old Justin Bieber has something to say that will get published, certainly *I* can come up with some fun bits to share!  Right?!

This gem has been sitting on my desk staring at me far too long.

Inside the box are cards labeled “Remember” “Discover” “Dramatize” and “Structure.”  Once a week I will select a card, do what it says and post it here.  (For the purpose of this exercise I will be selecting from the “Remember” stack.  The other stacks have to do with reworking your memoir so we’ll tackle that another day.)

Excited??

Some of you might remember the post where we happened upon a Clean House yard sale and purchased the “big ticket item”, refresh your memory here!

We eagerly awaited the airing of the show.  It aired on Friday and…WE.WERE.CUT!  What the hey-ho!  Niecy Nash actually went so far as to say, “…with no big ticket item there it will be difficult to make the goal…”  WHAT…There was TOO a big ticket item, and we purchased it and I can see it in qwendy’s house!!

pffttt…  Dead to me!

Check me out over here in Qwendykay’s hood!