My two and a half year old daughter began with just a few imaginary dog friends. Two or three of them started the pack.
She’s now up to nine dogs, and counting. They’re all different sorts of breeds, and they all have names, very specific colors, as well as an increasing array of otherworldly powers. They can talk (of course!), they can grow or shrink to fit a space, they can apparently lift many times their body weight, and at least one of them holds a job in a distant city — an airplane trip and a, quote, “lonnnnnnnggg car ride” away.
My wife Virginia and I originally thought that our daughter based this last quirky pooch on ME, and my frequent travels for work… but now we’re not so sure. We’re starting to think this particular dog is real, and may be consulting at the Pentagon.
My daughter and our one visible dog.
The dogs can also appear out of nowhere, in any number, when my daughter simply announces: “My dogs are here.” It’s mostly charming when she says that, but at times it’s hard not to take it as a threat.
She’s a sweet, beautiful little girl, and we love her like crazy. I’m getting scared, though. Her reportage on these dogs is awfully convincing, and consistent from story to story. And since she just recently announced that a new dog is “on its way” — a Golden Lab, pre-named “Yellow”, who is due to show up any day now (from where?!?!) — I’m starting to think I should call an exorcist, or at least get invisible Invisible Fencing. Our dear little toddler may have actually conjured up an army of powerful phantom dogs, whom she commands with her mind.
I’m comforted a bit by remembering what an all-powerful entity I was as a kid, what with my rotating array of secret powers. For a while I was certain that if I just made myself…well, die… that I could instantly come back as a magic being. And if not magic, per se, then certainly something in the Superman range of powers, since I would have visited the magic afterlife and had access to the array of supernatural coolness that abounds there. The rule I imagined — creepy as it sounds — is that as long as I did myself in by my own hand, with the right goal (of being magic!!!), then I’d come back as an all-powerful spirit. No, I can’t justify it metaphysically, or with reference to any canon law.
This great plan never went past me trying to hold my breath a few times, not realizing — as our pediatrician once told us vis-a-vis toddler tantrums — that it’s impossible to hold your breath to death. Seems anything more strenuous than that wasn’t for me. I just didn’t want to be magic enough, damn it all.
I still have delusions of omnipotent grandeur from time to time, but they’re not as intense as my daughter’s command of invisible canines, or my resurrection-as-a-magically-magical-kid fantasies. Currently I believe that I’m a world-class ballroom dancer, but while implausible, it’s not impossible.
…Well, yes it is, I guess. Unless ballroom champs just rock back and forth on their feet clumsily to Bachman-Turner Overdrive, it’s impossible.
What delusions of omnipotence* did your younger self hold?
What about your current self?
(* NOTE: I did not say “impotence.” Please do keep that to yourself.)
54 responses so far ↓
1 Brian O. on Jan 23, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Back when I was a kid, I had the most unnatural tendacy to find good stuff whenever dumpstering. I mean, not “I’m gonna check every dumpster I see”, but more like “I bet there’s something in that dumpster over there”. I’ve salvaged gold jewelery, semi precious stone jewelery, an 8 oz bag of silver leavings, televisions, VCRs (which I would quickly repair and resell at the local pawn shop for booze money), clothing worth hundreds of dollars (most often left behind by college students whenever their semester ended and they had to move back in with mom and dad), classic postcards, antique watches, quilts, typewriters and computer equipment.
Back when I was a kid, I used to salvage electronic components from Sears “smash and toss” surplus/return merchandise and sell them on Canal St. in NYC as well. Hey, when you’re poor and nerdy, you gotta live off of your brains, because it’s obvious you can’t get much for your body.
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2 jsg on Jan 23, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Wow, Bill. if this gets out of hand I think I may have to report you to invisible animal welfare.
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Reply from Brian O. on January 23, 2008:
Yeah, but I bet he saves a ton on pet deposits, license fees, etc.
3 doggans on Jan 23, 2008 at 7:02 pm
For a while as a child, I was convinced that if I practiced long enough, I could slide up the banister, just like Mary Poppins.
Of course, then my Dad had to crush my hopes and dreams by explaining the concept of gravity to me. I still haven’t forgiven him for that.
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Reply from Mary Arline on January 27, 2008:
When I received an umbrella for my sixth birthday, I used to take it outside, open it, and prance around the yard every day in the hopes of learning to fly like Mary Poppins.
4 Walter on Jan 23, 2008 at 7:44 pm
I use to think that I could turn the TV off with my mind. Those mean college students at my parents house just had the remote. Gosh that would have been awesome.
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5 SarahCanuck on Jan 23, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Wow. I adore your daughter, first off. Now that is an awesome kid.
I wasn’t particularly convinced of magical powers, but I did have an absolute stable and zoo full of imaginary animals - all named, all with personalities, and all with elaborate backstories and possibly futures as trained show-jumpers or attack-rhinos and of course a bunch of children.
Oh, and the normal bizzarre alien-esque imaginary friends, like a giant purple dude who looked like Gumby but talked kind of like a gospel singer.
I always WISHED I could fly, or turn invisible, or have telekinesis or such (come to think of it, I think a few times I tried concentrating really hard to move things), but I was too practical - I had a great imagination, but I knew I was suspending my disbelief when I pretended that I was a fairy or a leopard-lady or a magic princess or a shapeshifting superhero or able to draw a picture and enter it or convince plants to grow or get my tigers to attack bad guys.
Now I just talk to plants and rocks and chairs and cups and books and Christmas decorations, and of course hold intense debates with my cats.
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6 Rufus T. on Jan 23, 2008 at 8:40 pm
I th0ught gremlins were awesome when I was a little kid. I was doubtful of my peers because they hadn’t even considered catching and breeding those amazing creatures. Shame on us adults and our narrow views!
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7 NotMerrittStone on Jan 23, 2008 at 8:52 pm
So this has officially been my favourite post on the Rifftrax blog so far. I read it aloud to my wife (not because she’s illiterate, but because she was busy on her own computer at the time) and after we both discussed how funny and cute it was, she mentioned that maybe your daughter is being visited by fairy dogs.
I didn’t know what the hell she meant, because, well, I’ve never been a little girl, (despite my best efforts) and know nothing of fairies, so I did some exhaustive (2 entire pages of google results) research.
Hopefully none of her phantom dogs are black, or green or the size of a calf:
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/folklore/black_dogs.html
The good news is, you might be able to sell your story to M. Night Shyamalammadingdong.
Sleep well!
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8 Mr. Slick on Jan 23, 2008 at 9:26 pm
When I was a kid I thought I was an alien left on Earth to observe and report (not too unlike Mork from Ork). My people communicated to me thru long high pitched noises like from the Emergency Broadcasting System. Since they changed the alert my people don’t talk to me anymore
P.S.
Maybe you should have your daughter get her imaginary dogs to do a movie then Kevin’s dog can review it!
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Reply from Bill Corbett on January 24, 2008:
“When I was a kid I thought I was an alien left on Earth to observe and report (not too unlike Mork from Ork).”
I once did a short solo play with that exact premise, about six-seven years ago. If you’re interested, click the link and scroll down to “The Murderer and the Martian.” (Seems to be the only record of that little show, at least via Google:)
http://www.citypages.com/databank/22/1079/article9741.asp?page=2
Reply from Edgewriter on January 24, 2008:
Wow, Bill. Was that during your “dark period” after MST3K where you wandered from town to town doing introspective one act plays trying to find yourself by expressing your angst?
I mean:
“Corbett’s monologue is of a piece with his play Heckler from this past year, in that both have deluded egomaniacs as their protagonists. But Corbett’s Martian is a gentler character than the trash-talking bully from the earlier piece. He acts the role with a sweet, lost quality that stands well against Hatcher’s murderer, who is a creature of grand coldness and malevolence.”
Was sci-fi channel the murderer, Bill?
Reply from Mr. Slick on January 24, 2008:
So Bill you’re telling me that someone took my childhood fantasy and turned it into a play? I hate when that happens! My boyhood has officially been raped! AGAIN!
P.S.
Did you’re character happen to have the useless power being able to control traffic signals?
9 Ranika on Jan 23, 2008 at 9:27 pm
I used to think I controlled the things in the dark (the boogeyman and all). And had elaborate hierarchies worked up for all kinds of scary freaky things that I’d use on my brother for being mean to me. I’d blame everything on them that happened bad to him at night; falls out of bed, they shoved him, bangs his head getting up, they moved things to smack his head off of.
Course, I also believed massive horrifying creatures composed solely of the legs of a spider except for a mouth roamed the woods near my home at night, but that was my cousins fault, and their parents fault…and their parents…and so on. Generational fear, huzzah. Not to mention terror at faeries, ghosts, and every other little bastard that could hide in dark places. …Except boogeymen and others that wandered around in houses. They were my homies.
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10 Dave-o on Jan 23, 2008 at 10:17 pm
when i was a (delusional) little kid i would find dead toads in a little place i knew i could find some toads, and put them in an empty flower pot that had soil in it and i thought i could put it in, swirl it around the pot quick enough with a stick to make a fire and bring it back to life…did Carl Jung have a diagnosis for something like that?
and off subject, thanks Bill (and your fellow rifftrax-ers) for sharing with us the new rendition of the rifftrax on plan 9. It is great!
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11 Eddie Colton on Jan 23, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Hmm, I had an army of harmless black ants at my command. I also put tweezers in the wall socket and didn’t die. So I had that going for me. I also used to imagine I had a friend. That still hasn’t come true though.
.. . .
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Reply from Onil on January 24, 2008:
I controlled an army of ants too!
My mom swears to this day that I would spend countless hours talking to my ant friends. I even kept a few with me at all times inside a match box.
12 YoohooRiffer on Jan 23, 2008 at 11:06 pm
First, I agree with NotMerittStone that this is the funniest thing I’ve read here. Absolutely amazing.
Second, I am still convinced to this day that I once leviated. I was walking on the top of my couch because as a rule there were no toys allowed in our household and I had to make do with furniture and tupperware and such. So I was walking back and forth on the arms and what not, when I suddenly walked right off the arm of the couch. Even today I can distinctively remember walking of the edge, hovering for a few moments, and then falling to the ground. I was amazed and perplexed by what happened and I tried to recreate the odd experience but to no avail. So I will remember forever how I once levitated for a brief moment and every once and awhile I’ll try walking off the arm of a couch to see if I float.
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13 Katie M. on Jan 23, 2008 at 11:30 pm
As a child, I was convinced that if I only wished hard enough, I could become a mermaid. There was about a whole week once when I would come home from school, make a beeline for the bathroom, climb up on the sink counter and run water over my feet and ankles for about an hour, expecting any moment to sprout scales and fins.
Obviously I watched “Splash” a lot as a kid. Damn Ron Howard.
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14 Raistlan on Jan 23, 2008 at 11:32 pm
I was convinced that I was always on the verge of levitating and hovering [especially when I was sleep deprived
].
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15 AmandaGal on Jan 24, 2008 at 12:00 am
I used to tell people had a pet dragon, not a whole pack of dragons though. My dragon could command the wind and elements. I remember “threatening” people with my dragon (like, “If I can’t stay outside, my dragon will be mad”). My proof he was alive was generally the wind rustling or something with a bust gust getting a, “see, he’s mad. . .” or something similar.
I think I watched “Pete’s Dragon” one too many times.
More psychotically, I once befriended Hulk Hogan and told people he lived in an abandoned house down the street from me. The mailbox said “Hogan” so I created fanciful stories about Mr. Hulk and how he was away doing Wrestlemania or something similar and would be back soon. Anti-psychotic medications helped.
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16 Tim on Jan 24, 2008 at 1:02 am
This is a blog entry I wrote a while back, pertaining to childhood imaginary friends. It’s long, but I hope some of you like it…
Catching Up With Friends
Few things in life can be as interesting as sitting down with old friends whom you haven’t seen in years and catching up on where they’ve been.
Even fewer things are as interesting when the “old friend” is my imaginary friend from early childhood, Aloysius. (Yes, as a 4 year-old I named my imaginary friend “Aloysius”. I had a passion for names from the later-Latin dialects.)
As a young child, I was always up to date on what Aloysius was doing. He was an elderly man even back then. Aloysius lived in a large, multi-colored water tower across the highway from Worlds of Fun, an amusement park in Kansas City. I’m not sure exactly how he came to live inside the water tower, and I never asked him. Looking back now, I can only assume that living in the water tower was profoundly frustrating. The slick metal interior walls must have been nearly impossible to decorate, let alone be able to provide anywhere comfortable to sit or sleep. The acoustics inside the water tower would no doubt be a problem, as a sound as simple as a human sneeze would reverberate and multiply wildly, bouncing back into your ears at 167 decibels.
The last time I saw Aloysius, he wore the same set of flower-patterned pajamas every day, and never combed his hair. My, how things change. Oh, sure, Aloysius still eschews hair-combing; his hair still looking like he rolled out of bed in 1983 and hasn’t touched it since. Aloysius does, however, have new stories to tell.
I was eating a roll of SweetTarts in my room recently when I received a phone call from Aloysius. He was at a pay phone outside of town and he offered to pick me up and take me out to eat. I cautiously accepted, and soon enough Aloysius showed up driving a 1987 Toyota Tercel that at best could be described as “bowling shoe-ugly”. After some convincing, I agreed to get into the car, and we were off. Following a tumultuous incident when Aloysius tried to order a 12-ounce steak in the drive-through at Long John Silver’s, we decided to go elsewhere. I suggested we go “someplace nice”, and Aloysius agreed, promptly driving us to Denny’s. After 34 minutes of awkward silence, Aloysius was able to successfully break the ice with an 8-minute (and decidedly moist) coughing fit. He assured me he was not choking, and we soon got into a conversation. I asked Aloysius what he’s been doing all these years. He unleashed an epic story, beginning with his moving out of the water tower years ago. Apparently, carrying groceries one bag at a time up a 200-foot ladder to enter the water tower is not as enjoyable as it may sound. Aloysius travelled the globe for some time afterward, accumulating wives, and subsequently, divorces. It was around the time of his fifth divorce that he suffered a gruesome shin injury. While shopping for fresh produce at a street market in Sumatra, Aloysius was beaned by a ripe rutabaga. The cloth of his flower-patterned pajamas provided little defense, and the wound required several stitches and rehabilitation. Upon completion of his stint in Liechtenstein for physical therapy, Aloysius made his return to the United States, taking up residence inside a silo in Odessa, Missouri.
It was around this point in his telling of the story when Aloysius stopped abruptly, grabbed the last piece of toast from my Grand Slam Breakfast, and ran from the table. He was in a full-on sprint for no more than three steps before tripping and falling headlong into a waitress, knocking over a tray full of Denny’s’ patented Unwashed Water Glasses®. Eventually Aloysius was out the door and he made a quick getaway, sticking me with leaving the tip.
I haven’t heard from Aloysius since that day, and I must say I’m thankful. I suppose his story could possibly be true, but I remember him telling me when I was four that he could bench press a live cow, and that never happened (I watched him try it for an entire afternoon), so who knows. I am sure of one thing: I’m likely the only person who has survived a reunion with his (obviously psychotic) former imaginary friend. I also fairly certain of another thing: no one is currently living inside the water tower across from Worlds of Fun.
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17 Jen on Jan 24, 2008 at 6:15 am
I used to believe that I could imbue my stuffed animals with certain protective powers - so that when I had one so charmed, it would create an aura around me and protect me from anything. I’m not sure why I needed the stuffed animal, if I’m the one that originated the power in the first place, but it made sense at the time.
Now I just believe crazy things like I’m responsible and mature enough to have an actual day job and raise a daughter of my own. Don’t know where I got those ideas from.
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18 Melman on Jan 24, 2008 at 6:28 am
I used be followed around by this mad person made of springs. He would never get further away than 20 feet but never closer than 5. He could keep up with cars on the freeway by swinging from lampposts, and he would sit outside my window at night. He never spoke, and his eyes were always directed at me. I always just knew him as the spring man. I never knew why he was following me either, he was just there. I bet if I looked really hard I could still see him following me.
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Reply from Bill Corbett on January 24, 2008:
You were stalked by Coily!!
19 SaraLuna on Jan 24, 2008 at 6:44 am
That cartoon baby’s area is visually disturbing.
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20 Keenster86 on Jan 24, 2008 at 6:50 am
When I was….younger. I played with toy soldiers and created a scenario that is identical to the current situation in the Middle East. This was ten years before that began to take shape and.. I feel partly responsible.
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21 Mystok on Jan 24, 2008 at 6:50 am
I used to have an invisible evil mole that could bend the laws of physics as my friend. We used to stop gravity together and watch all the cows float away. Then he morphed into my little brother and lost all of his cool powers… still looked like a mole for awhile though.
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22 Leigh Ann on Jan 24, 2008 at 7:04 am
I used to tell my family that in the “Other World”, my name was Pabo and I could swim. Apparently I came from somewhere called Pascuala or Pasquala, and I would describe the mountain landscape in detail. My dad told me much later that he had thought it was kind of creepy, but really cool.
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23 Fran in the Pan on Jan 24, 2008 at 7:26 am
I would spend a lot of time at the local pool in the summer and see how long I could swim, underwater, with my eyes closed and not run into any of the otherchildren swimming around me. I thought I had a special sense of how human bodies displaced water and that I could manuever around them.
Pretty sad now that I think about it. Most kids probably go to the pool to play with other kids, while I just thought it was great how I could avoid them all.
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24 Adam on Jan 24, 2008 at 7:51 am
I lacked imaginary friends or delusions of superpowers as a child. However, my sister had an absolute army of imaginary friends, most prominent of which was Davey Jones. As in the Monkees. She would talk to him and her other “people” as she called them for literally hours on end.
Also, she was born in 1984, so her interest in Davey Jones was particularly bizarre. It was Nickelodeon’s fault, really; they used to show the reruns some 20 years ago.
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25 Jef on Jan 24, 2008 at 8:13 am
As a child, I was head of an imaginary swat team of wizards, warriors and Mega Man that would fight off the Critters (yes, from the movie) and Aliens (a la Ridley Scott) that were hiding in my closet and under my bed.
I was terrified by horror movies, but just couldn’t stop watching the damned things.
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26 Josh "Curds" P on Jan 24, 2008 at 8:42 am
After watching a Twilight Zone ep, I would occasionally ask telepathically “Is anyone hearing this… if so, turn around right NOW!” I still like to do this for fun and nostalgia’s sake.
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27 Isaac S. on Jan 24, 2008 at 10:34 am
I once jumped down a flight of stairs, completely convinced that I would fly to the bottom, just like Superman.
And I once spent an entire day spinning like the Tasmanian Devil. Everywhere I went.
I wish I was joking.
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28 Natalie on Jan 24, 2008 at 10:42 am
I don’t have any grand childhood stories at the moment, but I just wanted to say thanks for sharing.
Your daughter sounds like an awfully cool kid. 
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Reply from Bill Corbett on January 24, 2008:
Thank you Natalie.
She is indeed cool. We love her beyond words, but we’re also royally entertained by her every day. Kids = funny.
29 Fortis on Jan 24, 2008 at 10:49 am
I am a weapons master, with anything from plastic ninja swords, to a Nerf Bazooka, I am capable of destroying all imaginary forces…except I have a phobia of invisible canines. And of stuffed Tigers.
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30 SoCal G-Gal on Jan 24, 2008 at 11:18 am
My dad had a friend named Roger Sefton, and for some reason, my brother created an imaginary friend…named Roger Sefton. My parents had to set a place for him at dinner, listen to stories about him, etc. My brother’s pretty creative in general, but for some reason as a kid, he just wanted his own Roger Sefton.
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31 MarkAndrew on Jan 24, 2008 at 11:19 am
I was convinced I had the ability to communicate with cats and rabbits.
I would wiggle my nose at the rabbit, it would wiggle back. I was convinced I was having very deep discussions about life, food pellets and wire mesh cage bottoms.
My cat would yowl (and it was a Siamese, so it could yowl like a world-champion) and I would yowl right back…with equal volume and intensity. I, I got spanked a lot as a child.
I blame Dan Haggerty.
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32 R.A. Roth on Jan 24, 2008 at 4:00 pm
I’m ashamed to say I once identified with the black and white Japanimation character Prince Planet. He had this cool transformation medallion. Push the button and he was Prince Planet, poorly animated character for a schlocky kids’ show imported from a nation where eating candied seaweed and donning upsettingly tight and small short pants were encouraged.
But I nevertheless thought it was cool. I even drew up plans for my own Prince Planet medallion. I whipped up the courage to show them to my father who feigned intrigue in them the way he feigns intrigue in my bookish literary efforts. But once I realized I was the king of a distant alien world who’d been trapped in a human body as part of a coup d’etat, my fetish for Prince Planet faded quickly.
I vow revenge on you, Gorath, and one day I shall regain my throne!
Randy
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Reply from Connie on May 2, 2008:
I LOVE Prince Planet. I was just telling my five year old son all about him (while singing the Prince Planet theme song… here comes Prince Plaaaaaanet, PRIIIIIIINCE Planet!) when I stumbled across this thread. Thanks for the memories.
33 Kenny8 on Jan 24, 2008 at 5:32 pm
As a child I was blessed with the ability of being able to teleport myself around the house and backyard. Also chewing Wrigley’s Spearmint gum enabled me to breathe underwater in the backyard pool like Marine Boy.
Unfortunately, being in Australia we had no Justice League to aspire to so my abilities were wasted.
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34 Adam Electric on Jan 24, 2008 at 7:03 pm
since this was deleted from the forum i’m gonna go ahead and post it here cause it seriously concerns bill corbett….
http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/4415/filmcrewtitanhz2.gif
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Reply from Adam Electric on January 24, 2008:
oh and still unrelated to the original blog (which had me in veritable stitches!)
this too, which concerns a certain b. corbett (i actually live on “corbett road” in a suburb north of boston… yeah, think about it) was also in my forum post that was deleted
http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/4513/iceqe1.gif
Reply from BathTub on January 25, 2008:
Well I didn’t delete them, where did you post them, the fan art section?
Reply from Adam Electric on January 25, 2008:
I posted it over in the fun stuff section that I couldn’t find so i used a cached link from google which obviously wouldn’t work… and thus my idiocy is forever immortalized in the previous reply. But thanks for letting me catch that error by checking, you rifftrax people are a forgiving bunch, so I’m not worried.
35 meg on Jan 24, 2008 at 7:28 pm
I believed that, if I was patience enough, Robin (as in “Batman and…”) would come have lunch with me.
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36 Kei on Jan 25, 2008 at 6:02 am
Games I played as a kid:
- Pretending not to have joints.
- Dressing up as a blind peddler and begging my parents for “alms.”
- Putting plastic bags on the carpet, then running at them to create a brief, exhilarating moment of slippery joy before crashing into a wall or fern.
- Acting like the floors of our house were actually shark/gator/piranha-infested waters, geographically inaccurate as that was. Good excuse for climbing on the furniture.
I wasn’t very bright (obviously), but it sounds like your daughter is. I mean, different breeds? And she’s not even three yet? I wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t know what a dog was when I was two. Ashamed and disappointed, but not surprised.
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Reply from SarahCanuck on January 25, 2008:
Wow, I did 3 of the 4 of those. I admit not having joints never occurred to me, though I did try to become a contortionist. I played the lava-on-the-floor game at other people’s houses - boy they weren’t amused to have their throw pillows used as leaping points.
I played extremely-poor-girl-needing-to-beg-and-scrounge to-feed-her-massive-brood-of assorted-dolls (ahem, children)-with-various-physical-ailments. Ah, childhood.
Of course I also pretended I was a bird, and made a nest out of lawn-mower clippings and cared for my eggs.
And of course explorer, with all my stuffed animal assistants and my blanket-bag of supplies, plus a map, generally an extremely scribbled-upon bit of construction paper. Oh, and a captain’s log (more paper).
MAN I had fun one year - we got this little file cabinet, and I appropriated the box. It was my ship, the ‘Cheetah’, and I stood it upright, climbed in the top, hauled in an atlas and a blanket, and sailed about the world. Ah, boxes.
I now have the sudden urge to make a tent out of chairs, a blanket, and some encyclopaedias to hold the blankets down.
37 Armies of phantom dogs, and other signs of childhood omnipotence. « They Can’t All Be Winners on Jan 25, 2008 at 9:52 am
[…] Armies of phantom dogs, and other signs of childhood omnipotence. Published January 25, 2008 Links Armies of phantom dogs, and other signs of childhood omnipotence. […]
38 camcat on Jan 26, 2008 at 1:17 am
My twin daughters created an entire extended family of “ghosties” who lived in the crawl space under our house and followed us around everywhere we went. Daddy Ghostie went to work with Dad, Mommy and Baby Ghostie hung out with me, and the Kid Ghosties did kid things in the pretend forest (a bunch of overgrown hedges). The girls were around 3 when they started this and the family was with us until middle school. My favorite memory is of the girls and ghosties playing in the sandbox and I overhear one (girl, I hope) saying, “You be Captain Kirk, and I’ll be the Little Mermaid.” Some things you just don’t want to know.
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39 Mary Arline on Jan 27, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Wow, Bill, you should be a therapist or something because I feel strangely compelled to bear my soul to you in response to your recent posts, and to share with you now a painful (or at least embarrassing) childhood memory that I’ve shared with very few people, namely how my childhood delusions of omnipotence kept me back a year in school.
I originally started kindergarten when I was 5 years old because (a) I had a summer birthday and (b) I could already read at the time. One day I was talking in class when I wasn’t supposed to be and, as punishment, was kept inside during recess, which I now realize was fair (I was aware of the rules and the consequences and I had willfully broken them anyway), but for some reason at the time I was devastated by this punishment.
I was to remain seated at a table for the duration of recess. For some reason that eludes me now, I and the other girl who was being punished at the same time (the girl I was talking to? the details are lost to memory) were left unsupervised for…well, probably for only a few minutes, but it seemed like much longer at the time.
I spent nearly the whole recess crying; I was upset and I was tired and I was bored, and I just wanted the day to end, so I decided to do magic to get myself home sooner (I no longer remember how this magic was to manifest itself…teleportation? time acceleration?). Now, I never actually BELIEVED that I could do magic; it was just something to do to pass the time rather than sitting at the table and crying, purely for entertainment purposes (though I wouldn’t have complained if it HAD worked). But for some reason, I wasn’t content with performing magic while sitting at the table where I was supposed to be…oh no, I had to get up and walk across the room to perform my magical rite (apparently the cosmic vibrations over there were more conducive to magic or something).
So much of this incident is lost to the mists of memory…I don’t remember now exactly what procedures my mystical rite involved (I’m guessing that they mostly consisted of complicated magical hand gestures) but in the middle of it one of the teachers walked in and caught me at it. Puzzled by my inexplicable behavior, she asked me what I was doing, and I can only imagine what she felt at my innocent reply of “I’m doing magic to get myself home” (my guess is bewilderment mixed with fear). Soon after this incident the teachers arranged a conference with my mother in which they convinced her that I was too immature to be in school yet and that I should be taken out of school to return the following year, and so it was done.
Recently I learned from my mother that the teachers may have had ulterior motives for this, as they were coping with abnormally large class sizes that year. She suspects that they had targeted me as a potential scapegoat and were looking for reasons to “dismiss” me, as it were, because I was so young.
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40 Alicia on Jan 29, 2008 at 11:54 pm
I never had any of the usual “My dolls are alive” or “imaginary beings” quirks, but I did believe that vehicles were alive. Like Transformers, only without the transforming part. Trucks were male, cars and vans were female. And they all had names which could be deciphered from their licence plate. I still name our cars because of it.
When I was five I became convinced that if I ran headfirst into a pillow hard enough, I’d turn into a cartoon. I watched a lot of Warner Brothers as a kid.
It was also during those impressionable years that I developed several obsessive compulsive behaviors that remain with me to this day. The strangest being that I can’t be in view of the street when a car drives by; I have to run inside or duck behind something so the driver couldn’t see me. We don’t live in a dangerous neighborhood, it was simply that people in the cars weren’t allowed to see me. My chest actually tightens in fear now when I hear a car coming and I’m in the yard.
And everything must be symmetrical. Left to right, top to bottom, front to back. Be it in artwork, or drumming my fingers on the table. And when possible, everything must conform to a pattern of even numbers and vowel letters plus R. And lists. I’m fanatical about lists. I transcribed the entire manifest of the RMS Titanic passengers and crew when I was 11, by hand, just for something to do.
I’m not healthy.
[Reply to this]
Reply from Melman on January 31, 2008:
I do the symmetry thing as well. I was going to get a tattoo on my arm, but the only thing that stopped me was I’d need to get the same tattoo on my other arm to be symmetrical.
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