Why I would NEVER want my parents’ job.

Growing up I was an… interesting child, to say the least. Aside from the fact that I was all sick and what not and everyone was all sad I think that there must have been more than one occasion when my parents stopped and thought ‘Why did we do this again?’

My sister was an angel apparently, quite child with pretty hair. If you ask me she was BORING. I came along to bring excitement to everyone’s lives, and excitement I brought. I’ve always been an over achiever so you can imagine I took this task very seriously. I fought with my ‘angel’ sister constantly. Let me tell you, in the heat of battle she was not very saintly. I always won though, so much so that she still tells the stories of my brutality. Once we got new electric toothbrushes (don’t ask, we were 90’s kids ok that was high tech!!) anyway, I wanted the red toothbrush, but so did she. So what did I do? I took the green toothbrush she left for me and attacked her with it. Now, if you were a 90’s kid like me you would know that early electric toothbrushes were not quite so sleek, it was a big heavy sort of device. (What can I say, the things we do for our teeth.) In any event I beat her on her back with the green toothbrush until she relinquished and I got the red one. Victory!
Another occasion was when she decided to put blue food colouring in my breakfast pancakes. Now, first of all I am not and have never been a morning person. I am not someone you want to mess with in the morning, if ever. That being said I don’t know why she felt the urge to cross me that morning, but it did not end well. Let’s take a moment here to reflect on what caused the fight, she wanted to put blue food colouring in my pancakes. We were weird kids, we liked colourful food. Remember when Heinz brought out purple and green ketchup that really looked more like Shrek than a condiment? I am still convinced they got the idea from a spy that followed us around in our youth. Mind you, neither my sister or I eat ketchup but I imagine we were still a goldmine in strange creative ideas for weird little children. If we could eat it, we wanted to dye it. Our kitchen cabinet was full of food colouring. That morning, however, I did not want blue pancakes. I wanted normal pancakes like a normal rabid morning monster. My sister, on the other hand, did not want normal coloured food. She took out the little pot of blue liquid, got a straq and stuck it into the pot and I grabbed the large spatula out of the hot pan (everything seems bigger when you’re but 8 years old) and chased her around the house with it. Wielding the hot spatula as my weapon I chased her down the hallway into the living room and up a curtain on the window. I have to give her props for her agility.
I feel the need to mention, here, that my sister and I have since settled our differences and are now thick as thieves as they would say. Who ‘they’ are I am not sure, but I’m sure they’d say it.

My sister was not the only one who was subject to my strange childhood behaviour, however. My poor mother, who for reasons I still cannot uncover, loved me dearly despite my abnormality, has told me stories of how I used to ‘worry’ her. Apparently I had an obsession with death. My death. This must have especially disturbed her because, as I’ve said, I was extremely sick in my early days and almost didn’t make it. Somehow, though, I did, and my parents still say their glad. However, I suppose I was not satisfied with that. I used to sit in the back of the car when my mother was driving on the highway and announce things like
“Mummy, you know if I opened the door right now I would fall out into the street and the car behind us would run me over and I WOULD DIE.” I imagine I had crazy little crazy eyes while saying this.
Another example would be, looking over my grandma’s balcony on the top floor of her apartment building
“I bet if I climbed over the balcony and jumped off the edge I wouldn’t land in the pool… I would hit the ground and I WOULD DIE.”
I have no recollection of any of these occurrences but my mother assures me I was one scary little freak. This is why, looking back, I can honestly say I would never, ever, want my parent’s job. If I were them I would lie awake at night thinking ‘maybe we should have stopped after the first one.’