McNelis.biz

Welcome to my personal kickoff of NaBloPoMo!. Somehow I doubt I’ll be able to keep up with the demands of at least one entry per day…but we’ll try.

To really set the tone I’m going to try to start a new regular feature here, and if you guys are interested in me keeping it going please, please let me know. This is a segment called ‘As a Child.’ Why? Well, because as a kid I did some downright amusing things that I hope make for good storytelling. Or at least that you end up laughing a little bit…maybe some will be sad…but regardless, your feedback is really important to know if I should keep this weekly feature.

When I was about three or four years old, I’ve been told, I spent an inordinate amount of time with my Dad out in our garage, and he was always working on a car. Because of this I’ve ended up growing up with a great love of all things mechanical and automobiles in particular. As such, I had lots of toy cars and trucks.

Now I don’t know what other peoples dads are like out in the garage, but of the fathers I know that tinkered on cars, “shit!” and “God Damn-it!” are pretty commonplace. Makes sense, you try not cussing after you drop an transmission on your foot! You’d be pissed too! That or, if you can’t find your damn socket wrench. Its just the way Dads are…well, mine anyways.

I had a mild speech impediment as a child and a little trouble pronouncing some things correctly, so it was occasionally a bit difficult to understand what I said. On this particular day though, it only produced comedic results. Its really a shame I don’t have a recording…cause it would make sooo much more sense.

At any rate, on this one fateful day I was unable to find my toy truck anywhere. Under the couch? Nope. In the cereal cabinet? Nope, even though that is, you know, the most logical place for a toy truck to hide. It wasn’t in the towel drawer, mom and dads closet, or behind the T.V. As a young child this was devasting! I needed to know where my damn truck was. Now!

So I went to my mom and said, “Hey lady, where’s my damn huck!?” Ummm….yeah…I was swearing at 3. This really looks like I’m headed down a good path. My mom, needless to say was a little bit taken aback and she asked me, “What did you say?!?!?!!!!” I didn’t have much choice, I mean, my truck was missing! So I told her what I said, “I said, Where’s my Damn Huck!” It seemed a perfectly reasonable question, after all, I needed my damn huck.

Then mom asked the million dollar question, “Where’d you learn that word, damn?” Come on, as if she didn’t know. Lets be real mom, I’m 3 after all, I don’t know a rhetorical question from a whole in the ground at this point, and in hindsight, you already knew. But I knew no better, I sold dad down the river. “Daddy says it all the time out in the grudge!”

Needless to say, dad ended up with a stern talking to later that night about what is acceptable to say in front of an impressionable child. Of course I’m sure he still swore, but I figured out not to repeat it…at least where either mom or dad could here.

So that is it for the initial ‘as a child’ segment. What do you think? Should I bother with more about my childhood? Did any of you have similar experiences? Was it maybe mom who was swearing and you got in trouble in pre-school for calling the kid that ate your paste a God-damned-son-of-a-bitch?