Everyone needs a fleet of flying monkeys to rip the stuffing out of the annoying people in their lives
— Laura
I was in a work meeting yesterday, and the handouts were fastened with a large paperclip. I mindlessly started bending the paper clip to straighten it into a long metal wand, and all of a sudden I had a flashback. I flashed back to the time I killed a hobo with a sharpened paperclip shank.
Just kidding. (Or am I?)
No, the real flashback was when I was a little kid I used to straighten out paperclips in class and then bend them into a half circle so I could put it in my mouth and fit it around my teeth like a retainer. And then I’d go around showing everyone my completely fucking awesome retainer.
Note To Self: Silence the camera click on your iPhone before taking a picture in a meeting where everyone turns around to see what you're taking a picture of.
This led me to thinking of other ridiculous (read: ingenious) shit I used to do. I remember taking an Ace bandage from the first aid kit we had at home, hiding it in my book bag, and then wrapping it around a wrist or ankle every morning on my way to school. I’d tell some story about some accident I had and at the end of the day I’d take it off and hide it at the bottom of my book bag again before I got home, only to start all over again the next day. The birth of a hypochondriac attention whore, folks. I think that farce went on for a month or two until the bandage got real dirty and I lost the little grasp clip thingies. Man, what I would have given for an eye patch back then…
Then I think I was in the second or third grade when I became obsessed with taking Elmer’s glue and slathering it all over the inside of my hands. Once thoroughly coated, I would shake my hands around to help quicken the glue drying and then I’d peel the dried glue off. I would stare at the “prints” left on the glue for hours and then chuck all of them into an old cigar box my crazy-ass papaw had given me. I mean, I saved them all, like some kind of bizzare CSI evidence box. I don’t know what happened to that cigar box. To this day I live in constant fear that I’ll be framed for murder one day because my prints are out there. And so is my completely fucking awesome retainer.
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75 Responses to I guess I should be telling a shrink these things, but my medical insurance has no mental health coverage. Go figure.
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Did you also eat Captain Crunch sandwiches, too?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaLJPjLIdRQ
More proof that ‘Allison Reynolds’ is not a ficitonal character in some movie.
Ha! No, but I used to empty Pixie Stix in water and pretend it was wine. I’d even hold out my pinkie!
You should have been a Dentist….that is an awesome retainer and a whole lot cheaper then the ones they give you now. You my dear are a Genius….and you started so young……
I think so too.HA!
A paper clip shank… yeah… I can use that idea… Thanks
You’re welcome.
LOL! I used to put chewed up Reeses Cup paper on my front teeth to make them look like they were missing! LOL!
Now that’s weird. Ha!
This led me to thinking of other ridiculous (read: ingenious) shit I used to do….
HA! I think “Ingenious” is a perfect description. I wish I had known you when you were young…. it would have been a blast…. Fun would have been had by all….The adventures……ahhhhhhhh!
I dunno. I got in a lot of trouble.
that’s what Im talkin bout!!!!
When we were teenagers we used to put Elmer’s glue all over our face and let it dry then peel it off and look at the blackheads it pulled out…. Haaaaaa. it really worked. now they have “Biore’. or something like that.. we were so ahead of our times…
A lot cheaper too I bet.
Silence of the Monkeys…
It rubs the lotion on it’s skin…
creeeeeeeeeepy you guys!
I was soooo gonna go there. But “Silence of the Monkeys” is brilliant!
It is. I should do a story rendering board. Ha!
It was probably caused by the developing fluid for mimeograph copies. That was some intoxicating stuff. If I had some, I’d probably wear it like cologne.
Like the smell of Magic Markers..
I tic’ed off everything on your list minus saving the “skin” in a box. Too Howard Hughes, really.
Good times.
I thought of it more like a Jeff Goldblum in The Fly thing. You know, how he collected things that fell off and called his collection “Brundle Fly.”
I used to put bandaids all over my body and tell wild stories about my injuries!
Kids are weird.
Wait…are you trying to tell us it isn’t normal to use Elmer’s Glue to make a print of your hand??
Are you kidding me? I still do occasionally! Ha!
I TOTALLY did the ACE bandage thing to get out of gym class (before I learned that if you just always say you’re on your period you don’t have to do jack shit). As for the eyepatch, I actually DID have to wear one in kindergarten after a little rumble I had with my grandparents’ coffee table… kids have remarkably little pity.
I KNOW! Not one of those little sonsabitches cared that I was perpetually getting “injuried.”
Thank you for an absolutely hysterical start to my day…. The things we have done for fun!
If you ever make Silence of the Monkeys… I will be first in line!
I really should do a comic strip. (It’s one of the things (cartoonist)I wanted to be when grew up.)
Ha! Another thing to tick on the list. I had a whole comic strip series at one time when I was like, ten. I still remember the punch lines.
I thought they were funny. And unlike Elaine, I didn’t plagiarize Ziggy.
Are you sure we’re not related?
Ha! We might be! Oh do you still have your comic? How great would that be to publish on a blog- the 10 year old you? The cornier the better too.
I, too, had the Laura Ledford Fucking Awesome Retainer (patent pending) and I rocked it long & hard!
I did the gross glue thing, too, but not the spooky Howard Hughes keep the remains thing.
I am ready to weep that I didn’t think to do the ace bandage thing at least once. Sonsabitch!
I limped through most of first grade. HA!
Putting glue on one’s hands and then peeling off the dried ‘skin’ is cool.
There was one girl in my 2nd or 3rd grade class who used to put glue in her cupped hand and then get people to look at her while she licked it off her hand. NOT so cool.
I remember blowing out a candle, waiting a couple seconds for the wax to cool a little, and then dipping my fingertips into the melted wax to make fingerprint molds.
Kids do some horrifying shit sometimes. My aunt had severe diabetes. She had to give herself two insulin shots every day, and she’d throw the used syringes into the kitchen trash. At times, some of us kids would get them out of the trash, fill them with water and food coloring, and then use the syringes as makeshift water guns, squirting them at each other. How we avoided accidentally sticking one of ourselves is a mystery. I’d kill my kid if he did some crazy ass shit like that today.
Oh it’s really a wonder most kids lived back before everyone became overprotective of kids.
You were an awesome kid. I did the glue thing too, but not the saving my fingerprints part, probably because I didn’t have access to any cigar boxes. You were one step ahead of the game.
My crazy ass papaw saw to that.
You are awesome.
I’ve been telling y’all that for years. HA!
Oddly enough the insurance at my work DOES cover mental health…I wonder why…
Silence of the Monkeys…priceless…
They’d go broke around this place paying on mental illness claims.
Oh my gosh!! I totally did that with paperclips and glue when I was a kid. People here at work looked at me like I was a nut job when I mentioned that. I’m so glad to know that someone as AWESOME as you used to do that, too.
Never saved the glue handprints…even in my elementary school years I may have known better than to leave such evidence laying around.
Ha!
I had a lot of hiding spots. I had to be sneaky being the youngest and the only girl.
But Elmer’s Glue tastes so….. actually I can’t remember what it tastes like, thankfully.
And some of us have graduated from spreading the glue on our hands, to spreading it on our noses, like a Biore pore strip. Ahh the joys of the wonderful glue from Mr. Elmer.
Airplane glue is much better… HA!
My students take the foil wrapper from their school lunch burger and make ‘grills’ for their teeth. Would love to do a ‘does this grill conduct electricity?’ experiment on them, but the principal said ‘No’. But she retires next year…..heh.
YES! And please film it!
We once held my youngest brother down and used an ace bandage to strap his hands to the sides of his head when he wouldn’t stop doing that stupid McCauley Culkin Home Alone thing. The bandage prevented all of his hair being ripped off when someone finally stopped laughing and felt sorry enough for him to pull the duct tape off (We didn’t have any clip thingies, either.)Did I mention it was his 25th birthday and we were all drunk? When we were taping him up we did remember to leave a gap in the tape so that he could breathe…. and we wouldn’t have to dig a hole in the back yard. Someone could lose a few toes digging a shallow grave while drunk!
HAHAHAA! We routinely tried to kill each other- except unlike y’all, we were kids.
I used to do the peeling off of glue thing, too! When I was a little older, I did the same thing with candle wax.
I burned myself way too much with the candle wax thing. I stuck to what I knew.
I would also take the wrapper halway off a lollipop, and pull it down so it would look like a cape; then it became “Super-Lolli”!
Ha!! I did the same thing! I would also try to see how many saltines I could fit in my mouth and then barely escape death because I’d run out of water and nearly asphyxiate on the crumbs. EVERY.TIME.
Yeah, I did the shank thing. But the retainer…nah.
Lock pick set ala Alexander Mundy from “It Takes A Thief,” oh yeah.
Nothing like trying to open all the locked doors in school to get you in solid with the principal
The principal and I were like this ><. Well, not really. Let’s just say I spend a fair amount of time there.
I did the same thing with Elmers Glue! I would save it in a pencil box too, like some weird freaky skin collection. I learned that the glue would dry faster if I clapped my hands together and would give it cool spikes, so I would find any excuse to clap. So I was the girl in the back of the class clapping for unknown reasons just so I could peel dried glue off my hands. At least I wasn’t the kid who pooped his pants. I made him cry by announcing to the class his new name is Sir Poopsalot.
I was a class act.
HAHAHA! I was very classy too with my shiny retainer.
I did the Elmer’s glue too but I graduated to rubber cement after a few times of Elmers.
At least it wasn’t Super Glue like Dougie Miller in 3rd grade did.
Damn, how’d that work out for him? Did he put it on his whole palm?
He glued fingers together and had to go to the hospital!
Best I could do for you:
http://aggiesprite.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/no-coal-for-you/#comment-2081
LOL!!!
WANT LIKE FIRE!!
Ah, yes. The best entertainment – making shit up on your own.
Before PlayStations and such.
Any pics of the Christmas Spider?
They hid the spider on me…this means I am working on decorating him all religious and shit : )
oh no they didn’t! shits going down now!
Exactly.
Good thing you weren’t taking a picture of your balls.
still do the glue and candle thing. Of course, now they have those hand spas where you stick your entire hands in was and they come out soft. I’ve been doing that for years, I should have applied for the patent but I’m kinda slow!
You coulda been rich!
That retainer is the best thing I’ve ever seen and I can’t believe I didn’t think of it. Also, we all did the glue thing, so in that case you’re not a freak.
That’s good. I was worried. Ha!