October 5, 2011

never in a million years.

Since I'm like, super old and mature now I've been thinking lately about things I did as a kid. To be exact, things I did as a kid that I would never in a million years consider doing now that I'm older and wiser and not so brave.

1. The goldfish incident
I had always, always, always wanted a goldfish and my lucky day came when I was about seven or eight years old (a little fuzzy on the time line-I'm judging these stories by their bravery content as I became less brave as I got older). 
Shortly thereafter, it was time to clean little Goldie's tank. Somehow-still not quite sure how- little Goldie ended up out of her safe fishbowl and down our kitchen sink-or to be exact- down the garbage disposal.
We all sat in awe of what happened and spent a fair amount of time just staring down that ominous drain wondering what Goldie's fate had been.  
Then someone came up with the brilliant idea that we could just....fish her out.
I shudder to think of this, but I volunteered and stuck my hand down the slimy garbage disposal looking for that dang fish.
Soon enough, among all the other gross shtuff, my hand came upon a slippery little fish. I scooped her right up and put her back in her fishbowl.
yuck.
yuck, yuck, yuck.
Ughh...just thinking of this story gives me the shivery-shudders

2. Horny toads.
I don't know if anyone else calls them by that name, or if anyone else would even know what I'm talking about, but when I was younger, my cousins and I would spend hours among the sagebrush (which was probably tick-infested) searching for these nasty, dry, toad-y things. I just have to document this because now there is no way I would ever dare go galavanting off into the  (tick-infested) sagebrush searching for gross little toadies.
Just so you know.

3. The cat whisper-er
Confession: I like cats.
Like a lot.
Like maybe more than i like dogs.
And I especially like little baby kitties-of course, who doesn't?
Anyway- when I was a wee one, probably about eleven years old we had a kitty (don't remember her name. we went through a lot of cats) and then our kitty had kitties.
It was the middle of winter and our kitty's kitties were in our milk barn which is just a fancy name for the shop that's about thirty yards from our house. So one day-on really blustery, really nasty, really snowdrift-y, really just-want-to-stay-in-your-house-and-drink-hot-chocolate day -I noticed that our kitty was sitting on the back step and not with her kitties in the milk barn.
The kitty was shiv-shiv-shivering and I could tell all she wanted was to be with her kitties in the milk barn, But alas! You couldn't even see the milk barn for all the blowing snow.
So I did a brave and noble thing.
Probably the only brave and noble thing I've ever done in my entire life.
I put my coat on.
my hat on.
my boots on.
my gloves on.
my snowpants on.
my ski mask on.
another coat on.
in other words...
I got all bundled up.
Went outside, scooped up my kitty, and braved the elements to take her to the milk barn.
I busted some serious drifts and was freezing cold, but we made it to the milk barn.
When we got there, I put the kitty down and she ran over to her kitties all huddled in the straw we had laid out for them.
I sat down on a straw bale and decided that I was probably never going to go outside ever again.
After my kitty tended to her kitties, she spent the next hour twisting around my legs, back, lap, purring all the while, thanking me in her kitty way- at least that's how I interpreted it.
And I told her that she was welcome and that I was glad she liked me because I was probably going to be around for awhile on account of I was probably never going to go outside ever again.


And those, my friends, are the only three brave things I've done in my entire life that I probably wouldn't ever in a million years do now.
Except for maybe the kitty one- because even though I've become disillusioned with goldfish and horny toads, I still mostly like kitties.
Mostly.

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