I've Been Tagged

Okay, thanks to DA, I've been tagged and must now share 5 embarrassing moments from my childhood (I'm a little late with my answers but here goes). Let's see...

1) We grew up spending a lot of time with some family friends, Amy and Melanie. They got a Video Recorder early in the 1980s, when they were still relatively new and rare, and we LOVED to make little videos. I was one of the tallest of our group so - when we did "weddings" or "proms" I was generally cast as a boy. There was one day, though, that I decided to put my foot down. We were doing a wedding, and Amy was going to be the maid of honor and sing "My Favorite Things" from The Sound Of Music. (Because... totally appropriate for a wedding.) I was supposed to be the Reverend. (For those of you who know her, AQ was the little bride, marrying Melanie, who had consented - under protest - to be the groom). But I was tired of being a boy! So Amy agreed that I could be the maid of honor, provided I still let her sing "My Favorite Things." Fine! Deal! Except... when it came time for the song, with video recorder rolling and all eyes turned to Amy (who - it should be pointed out - could actually sing) I started belting out a squeaky "My Favorite Things" rendition that would have sent Julie Andrews shrieking for the nearest exit. Amy freaked out, and the wedding came to a screeching halt, but I was supremely satisfied. I'm sure that video still exists somewhere, just waiting for the perfect moment to resurface as blackmail...

2) I hated middle school. A LOT. This was just a few years after I had discovered how AWESOME! books could be, and spent most of my conscious time reading. I got to school early and got to hang out with some friends in a classroom (one of my friends had a mom who taught at our school) which was far superior to being cast into the seventh level of hell which was the middle school hallway between classes. They used to play all sorts of games before school while I sat in a corner and read trying to block out the whole experience (I'm telling you, I HATED middle school). They started to get a little peeved that I never played with them, and finally convinced me to try playing games for a week. They were so convinced if I played for a week, I'd never go back to my books. So I put the book down and played all sorts of games with them every day before classes for one week. At the end of the week they asked "See? Wasn't that better than reading?" And I said "No." I mean, sure, it had been fun... but better than BOOKS??? For the rest of the year I would go to the classroom where they were all playing games and read in the corner. Happily.

3) I was addicted to an after school cartoon called "The Seven Cities Of Gold" that no one else in this world seems to remember. Oh, that and "Gem And The Holograms." That's right. Gem, oh, she's truly outrageous. Truly, truly outrageous.

4) Another Amy and Melanie story: We were filming a magic show. Amy was the magician - I was her assistant. I was all dressed up in my seven-year-old bikini and one of the mom's old lingerie robes (this one was see-through orange with a frilly border). We were doing a "magic trick" where we shoved my little sister into the plywood half of a rabbit hutch (she was very small at this point) and she scooted the rabbit into the wire part, thereby "turning" into a rabbit for the camera. With much flourish and ceremony, we helped Little Q into the hutch. That part where I locked her in (for like, 10 seconds, come on!) - yeah, that wasn't in our rehearsal. It is - however - immortalized on tape. Good thing VHS is a dead technology...

5) My mom and AQ and I used to play charades. We would do "characters from movies" charades, and liked to come up with stumpers. I remember one day (I was 8) I got on my back on the floor, put my arms and legs in the air, and belched. Over and over. They were mystified. They asked if this was a character from a movie and I nodded vigorously. I gave them clues to which movie. They were mystified. When I finally told them - "The Pit Of Sarlak!" they were mystified. Pit of...??? You know, from Return Of The Jedi! Did I mention I was a geek from the start?

All right! I'm tagging AQ and JB! Fess up!