I think I have just about covered it. I’ve talked about my love of muscle cars, my fondness for fashion and interesting footware, my vices and my love of freestyle 80s dancing.
There is nothing left. I am empty.
There is nothing left to say to keep the three of you reading this interested.
What the hell is there left to talk about? What? What, I ask?
I really only have about 24 interesting stories. If you are my friend and have known me for more than a year, chances are you will hear about the time I got lost as a kid (and the how the nice policemen found me weeping at the corner of O’Connor and St. Clair) more than a few times.
I am sorry. I just run out of new material. This is why I am always trolling for new people to have coffee with at work.
But you — my real friends — don’t get tired of it do you?
Okay, so I was about 3 or 4 and I was outside in the backyard digging a hole in the sandbox. (Of couse I was outside in the backyard — a backyard is by definition outside. I need an editor here. Spellcheck would be handy too!)
So there I was digging a hole and having a fun time. The next real memory I have is of my Mom at the backdoor waving my brown jacket at me. I remember that jacket had a brushed cotton interior and the outside was a slick fabric.
She asked me — no she told me — that I was cold and that I needed to put it on. I think I told her I was not cold. I don’t remember putting on the jacket. Mind you, my Mom was very persuasive, so I bet I did put it on.
I don’t actually remember this part. I was told this section of the story, so it feels like a half-memory of sorts.
The local kids were heading back to school after lunch and I was very anxious to go to school and so I decided to follow them. I guess I wanted to sign up.
This next part is critical — I could not speak English. Really. No English.
Somehow, I lost them and ended up at a busy intersection a fair distance from my house. I was crying.
My Mom realized that I was gone and in a panic ran to the corner store. I guess my Mom assumed I went there. The shopkeeper was a nice older man and he calmed my Mom down. (I remember him, he had that store for years.)
My Mom — unlike me — could speak English and she told the shopkeeper I had gone missing. He called the police and my Dad at work.
The next real memory I have is of being in the policecar. One of the policemen put his hat on my head. That I remember and I quite enjoyed it.
The cops were trying to ask me who I was. I knew who I was (I was very self-aware even at 3) but I could not get them to understand what happened. I think I knew my phone number. Why I knew that I have no idea. It might have been my house number … I just recall I knew a number of some kind. But not much else.
But they figured it out.
I vividly remember driving down my street and seeing all the neighbourhood ladies on the sidewalk. And my Mom. When I was lifted out of the yellow police car (I remember that too) my Mom picked me up. She was crying and hugging me. Then, she gave me a smack on the bottom … then more hugging. Perhaps a smack again but hugging too.
I did not learn English until I actually went to school for real a few years later.
So that’s it. My first story. I am done.
What shall I write about next? The high school years? I enjoyed high school so no real traumas but I will try and dig some up. I think I once tried blue eyeshadow.