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So I’m at home visiting for the holidays and it was suggested that I write about my fondest memories and I was thinking that I’d dedicate this week to it.  This is the perfect day to do it because I realized I don’t remember enough to really justify a whole story.

I lived on the second floor of an all brick house when i was twenty.  It had a full upper porch that we used to get baked on.  One day I was inside with a bunch of friends hitting the five footer we made when out of nowhere Louie walks in from the porch and screamed, scaring the absolute piss out of us.  That motherfucker somehow scaled the brick on the side of my house and got on that porch.  He totally Spidermanned my house.

I worked at the mall pet store.  At night I’d shut the gate to the store and I’d go in the back and smoke pot with a bunch of mall employees.  I made them bring me gifts in exchange for permission to partake in puppy playtime.  Shirts from Hot Topic, food from the various restaurants.  Whatever.   I can’t believe how much pot I used to smoke, the thought of it now gives me panic attacks. Anyway, I used to set all the bigger dogs loose in the store and let all the tiny puppies run around in the smaller puppy viewing area.  We had this Golden Retriever once that rocked.  I grabbed one of those rope tugs off the wall and started playing tug with her and then I let it go and launched her across the linoleum and that dog held that rope and slid across the floor into the aquariums.

I used to pick a puppy and take them home when the malls were closed over the holiday breaks and every single day I had a kitten with me wherever I went.  I made a little papoose that I wore because the kittens were always scared being away from their moms so I’d fit as many in it as possible and walk around the store with them next to my belly.

I’ve been writing my whole life.  I wrote my first “book” when I was about seven about getting lost in the mall.  I used to get baked and write with my friends.  None of them were writers but I always made them write.  I still have my notebooks.  I once wrote seven pages on how a strawberry could fit in a Pop Tart.  At no point did we realize that they could be A) not real strawberries and B) can be smooshed, which goes to show how totally baked I was because I grew up on a farm and made jam with my mom every year from the fruit we grew.

That’s right.  I grew up on a farm.

A slaughter farm.

I was told I used to walk into the kitchen daily and say “What are we having for dinner?  Pig or cow?”

To this day the only red meat I eat is burgers, tacos and meatloaf and I’ll only have white meat chicken or turkey off the bone.  I didn’t have a burger until I was twenty and I’ll never have steak.  Ever.  When all my friends wanted to hang out on a Sunday afternoon I was always stuck saying I couldn’t because I “had to wrap meat”.

One day I was at the park with Stef playing tennis when Mark and Jude showed up.  Mark was being a total dick and when Stef was walking away, he hit the ball and it just so happened to bounce off the ground and right up her ass.  The odd part was that she didn’t notice.  She walked about five steps with all of us laughing – even though I didn’t want to – when she stopped, turned her head asking what the hell we were laughing at and the ball simply went “plop” and dropped to the ground.  We still talk about that one.

Stef and I used to ride double.  She made me.  I had my own bike but she insisted on driving the bike while I sat on the seat.  I’m talking from like fifth grade until we were teenagers.  We were going down the road once when she takes a right off of Beach headed to the park.  Out of nowhere one of the town trucks comes flying towards us.  Panicked, Stef heads towards the woods, jumping off of the bike.  I was still on it.  I went flying into the woods, flipping over the handlebars and landed in a pile of burrs.  Do you know what those are?  They’re those tiny like brown spiked balls that stick to everything.  They were all over me.  She laughed.  I punched her and walked home.

I wonder if she’s going to Wally’s tonight?

I still talk to everyone I grew up with.  I’m in town for a week and I put a shout out every day of places I plan on being and people have met me.  Tonight’s the “big night” because I’ve had a few days to get everyone’s attention.  I swear I get my local bar the most business when I’m in town.  Everyone hates Wally’s.  It’s at the top of the hill. It’s maybe 1500 sq ft big with crooked floors, no ability to take credit cards and people smoke pot right outside.  I love going there.  I don’t come up here much and every time I’m here I get to see everyone.  I asked my sister why she hates it and she said “Jules, we all live here.  It’s only exciting to us when you’re here.”

That’s because I’m awesome.

I’m going to close with one last memory that just popped into mind.  When I was fourteen, my sister took me to the Lost Horizon.  It’s a shithole that tons of bands play at.  Pantera played there when they were new.  I got in without being ID’d (hot fourteen year old blond) and my sister and I kept doing shots of Southern Comfort in the bathroom.  What she didn’t know was that all her male friends were giving me sips of their drinks while I was out there.

The next thing I know, I was on the floor of that bathroom, head in toilet begging for the night to end.  This floor makes a gas station bathroom in West Virginia floor look inviting.  I have MAJOR germ issues and just thinking about the filth I sat in and the depth of which I put my head into that bowl makes me shiver.

Instead of going home, I’m taken to Wally’s for the first time.  Within moments, I’m throwing up in the bathroom there.  Wally’s bathroom has a sink and a toilet.  Pretty basic.  I’ve peed in the sink there because I couldn’t wait for whoever was using the toilet to finish.  Not really the best place to vomit but I didn’t care.  That was the one and only time in my life I drank Southern Comfort.

I walked out of the bathroom and my sisters friend Dan starts hitting on me.  All the flirt in my fourteen year old body was long gone.  I don’t know exactly what he was saying but all of the sudden I came back down into reality.  Looking directly at him I asked him how he could possibly be wasting his time hitting on me.  He proceeds to tell me I have that “natural beauty”.

I told him it was vomit crusted on my face.  He bet my sister $20 he’d bone me.  He still hasn’t.  I remind him all the time.  It’s been thirteen years.

I wonder if he’ll be at Wally’s tonight?

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