Fun Monday - A Trip Down Memory Lane

Karisma is the host of this week's Fun Monday and her challenge this week is this:

"I want you to take a trip down memory lane, and keep right on going, right back to your childhood. And I want to hear "THAT STORY". You remember the one? Yes, you do! The one your parents, siblings, extended family or friends, would never let you forget, live down or get over!"

This one really is a challenge for me, because I was a pretty quiet child and not apt to get into very much trouble or do anything to out of the ordinary.

I thought and thought all week and all I could up with were these few things, none very interesting I'm afraid.

-When I was about four or so, someone was holding me and normally never having such reach I decided to play with the thermostat. It was the middle of winter and I turned it all the way down. Needless to say the whole house froze that night and in the morning my mother couldn't figure out who had turned it down. Neither my brother nor I had the height to reach it. I am quite sure the blame went towards either my dad or his Uncle Jackie, who was visiting from Belfast. You know, the things men do when they are drunk. I think I told her when I was about 12. Now whenever I complain about how cold her house is she reminds me of the time I tried to freeze us all and surely I should be able to handle the slightly chilly temperature she keeps her house at.

- At about 7, I slammed a slab of wood down on my brother's hand, causing him to lose one of his nails. We were fighting of course. My mother likes to remind me of this when I tell her that I have never met two children who fight as much as Taylor and Liam. And while I may have caused my brother a little physical harm (or a lot) and while we did fight quite a bit, we never hated each other. Taylor and Liam? Hate each other. I would lie to my parents to keep my brother out of trouble. Taylor and Liam? Live to get the other into trouble.

-At 10, my brother and I were playing with a ball in the basement. My mother collected toby jugs and had one on the TV down there. I threw the ball and it knocked the jug over (a blessing really, those things are ugly as sin.) My brother wanted to just hide it and not tell her, which normally I would have gone along with (see! protecting each other!) but my friend had just told me a story about getting in a lot less trouble when she told her parents the truth right away so I said "No, I'm going to tell her." Up the stairs I went. Let me just say, I wish we had hidden the jug. Did I ever get in shit! So much for being truthful. I remember this myself, when I am trying to get the truth out of Taylor and Liam. Just tell me the truth, for Godsakes, and you probably won't even get into trouble. Nope, they would rather lie. And keep lying, even when I know the truth. Like Liam and the stolen money.

-At 14, a group of my friends and I skipped school and went to the open house of one of the high schools. We weren't supposed to be there, it was a day for the public junior high feeder schools and we were from the Catholic school. We got caught coming back to school by our scince teacher. Parents were called. I was the only one who got into any major trouble, I had to miss one of the girls birthday parties and the John Cougar Mellencamp concert. The other girls? Nothing! The three I was going to the concert with still got to go, all of them were at the party where they spent the evening talking trash about me. Junior high was never the same after that. Thank God I only had three months left to go. This was the only time in my life that I considered running away. I wanted to see if they would feel bad if I was missing. Funny, one of them is now on my facebook list. i still wonder why she invited me to be her friend. And why I said yes.

And that's it. We don't talk about anything that happened from 15-17, those years do not make for pleasant memories for my mum!

I hear a rumour that next weeks' host is Saoirse's future mother in law, Blue Momma. Looking forward to seeing what she comes up with!