Happy birthday! My fifth birthday was fun. We had it in the backyard; and on the covered patio. We played that game where each kid has a balloon tied around each ankle. Two balloons per kid. Unless you have kids with more legs. They still get only two. Obviously. And they have to tie up the extra legs, or go home. (The Muntfields are famous for bringing their four-legged kids.)
Then somebody says "Go!" (or, "You may begin"), and we all jump around trying to stomp the balloons on everybody else's legs.
Hee hee! Wow. It's fun. Til there is only one person with a balloon still......well, still ballooned.
They all make POPS, of course. A lot of stomps and pops. I really like it. I don't know the name of it, but I asked for it. I had "seen it somewhere;" but, to tell you the truth, I don't remember where. (I don't remember that part, the part what would have been my my First Encounter With Legitimized Balloon Stomping. Odd, isn't it?) But I was sufficiently, like wayo, impressed; so that when my mother asked me if I wanted to do anything "special" for my birthday, I said....."EES!~!!!"
I did. You bet. It's great to remember stuff. At the right time. And that was "it."
That was probably the first time I could connect wanting a something, having thought about wanting something, ("I would like to.....") with a later moment in which I got to do it, or was asked what I would like to do. I always think of them separately, way apart, and they never find themselves to the same corner of the highway, at the same time. I get annoyed with people who get what they want, when they're asked; I think, "How did they remember that?" (Remember to ask for a blowjob. Not from Santa. Okay; from Santa. Whoever. Just remember.)
I was clobbered, de-ballooned, immediately. Whaddya know. It was more than a defeat. I think I was surprised. Shocked, actually.
I had not anticipated it. In the four weeks before my birthday.
And frankly ~ I was annoyed. (I get mad.)
("It's my goddam party." Somehow I think that's what I was thinking.)
Some other little asshole won it.
I didn't even get to keep stomping, because the "rule" was, of course, that you had to "come out" when both your balloons were stomped flat. Popped. Yes, "popped" ~ that's the word I'm trying to remember.
("Normally", you don't get to "pop" balloons. Unless you're a bad kid. Very bad. What kind of kid would have much experience with intentionally popping balloons? Killers; that's who.)
When you got double-popped, flattened down to string and balloon bits, you were done. So you were supposed to hop pretty good, and maybe I was more of a stomper and less of a hopper, because I wanted to stomp first, and defensive-hop later ~ after the crowd had thinned out a little, and I had a few good explosions and destructive smirkings under my belt. Lodged in my Bliss-o-meter. Besides, it was pretty hard to get polished black little shoes to stick to the top of a wiggling balloon, and get a good downthrust. Good compression. You know what I mean? I was trying to focus.
But my balloons had a death wish. Suicidal. (Or someone was wearing golf shoes.) Because I was out, before the ~ no, "my" ~ party really started.
Anyway ~ I wasn't ready to come out.
I wanted to stomp balloons. I WANTED TO STOMP.
JEEZ!!
IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK??
REMEMBER AND ASK?
I probably, sort of "ignored" the little whistle; or whatever was the Law Enforcement of its time. Or pretended to be deaf, from pop concussions. In there in the Popping Zone. Or Balloon-Blind, like shell shock; as I had that affliction where you can't see your balloons are missing. Ruined. Deflated. Un-reconstructable.
(Or, maybe I was a Little Gentleman and said "Thank you all" as I was dragged to a stool by my madras shirt.)
(I say "maybe", because I don't remember. Everything gets a little hazy, right then.) Possibly because my frame of mind was changed, from Excitement Genuine, to "Forced To Consider The Rules." A little "time out," when some Other World Playground or Mommy-Monitor makes you STOP and consider what you're doing. "Stop hitting your sister. Her arm is broken."
"You have to come out now. You don't have any balloons ~ that's the rule."
(Oh sure, a mother with a whistle could stop seventeen kids stomping balloons like rabid serial killers.) (I probably had to be lasooed and dragged out by Cowboy Bob or Paintbrush and a bumper.)
I know I'm the first kid to ever admit this: I don't like the rules, when they don't go my way.
I have reasons to do the stuff I'm doing.
How's this for a rule, you bastards: "I want four balloons, because I'm five."
Well.
But I got a Pup Tent, for Christmas, which was in December, (!), and I wanted that, too; (I was really thinking pretty well back in those days), and I got it, and my fool parents said, "You can't put it up now; it's all muddy outside."
Shheeeeeeeee-it. I am sure.
I probably had to learn like Logic or something, right then. Because I know it took about a week, but I remember I got it up, outside, in the mud. "Army guys put up their tents whatever the weather is." "It's authentic." "The function of a tent is to keep things dry."
I must have gotten up every day of Christmas vacation (I would have been 6 and a half) (6 and 8-1/2 months, actually) ~ I must have got up, looked out the windows and said:
"It's sunny outside!"
"IT'S SUNNY OUTSIDE!!!"
"No."
Sighhh.
Jeez.
Grrr.
Goddam army.
I probably fondled the little metal stakes, and green canvas folderata of ready-to-up tent, and got a hammer ready from the garage, and looked at the pictures on the box, and eventually even read the goddam instructions ~ like I couldn't figure out what to do. It was two poles about three feet long, six little Bendem Brand stakes, some string (not Rope) and a piece of canvas about big enough to slide a hotdog under.
Soooooo; then the NEXT day:
"IT'S SUNNY OUTSIDE!"
(There was probably a patch somewhere. A ray. Somewhere. Even though the rain gutters were dripping.)
I wanted to get under that tent, so-o-o bad.
There's something about "that space." The positive and negative. In, (Under) ~ and Out. You're Not Under There, and you Get Under There. You get to LIE on the grass, under the tent. The Tent.
It's a TENT.
On your back, with your head out looking at the sky and clouds; or on your stomach, looking down in the grass; or on your side, peeking out at the house.....and anyone else, who is OUTSIDE the TENT.
It's beyond COOL, it's Magnificent.
Cozy.
Get it? It's cozy.
There's In, in there.
It's like a mailbox.
My parents didn't get it. Loons. That's all I can tell you about them. Loons. Birds of a different family than me, who just hatched me.
Or why I liked to get under the dining room table, either. They didn't get that. They'd tell me to get out from under there. They're such IDIOTS. How can you communicate with them? They don't even seem to Understand The Vocabulary.
"You'll get it muddy."
ARRRRRRHHH!
"You IMBECILES!", I scream, at the tippy-top of my lung capacity. Only it came out, "IT'S SUNNY OUTSIDE!"
"IT'S SUNNY OUTSIDE!!"
JEEZ! "DON'T you understand negative space? The creation of Negative Space? 'In'? There must be A THING, an opposite, to MAKE the Negative Space! Do you THINK Piet Mondrian's kid is waiting until Summer??? What are you guys!"
Alas!! These useless debates!!
Soo,
"It's sunny. Out."
"Okay. Okay.
You can put up your tent."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eh.
It was kind of funky. And muddy. |
