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Essays: Childhood

"I was watching a commercial for the new Simpsons movie, and do you know what I thought of?" My sister was visibly excited as she waited for my reply, but I knew I had to get more details to fully appreciate what she was going to say.

"Which commercial? There are a lot out."

"You know, the one where Homer holds the pig on the ceiling and says, 'Spiderpig, Spiderpig, does whatever a Spiderpig does.' Do you know now?"

"I have no idea, chick."

"Remember how we used to hold mirrors under our noses and 'walk on the ceiling'?" She laughed. "We used to jump over the door frames and everything!"

I laughed as I remembered what we must have looked like, walking around the house with a mirror under our noses. It seems like a completely unintelligible thing to do, but it was loads of fun! The only necessity was that it should be done in a clean house; otherwise, it detracts from the illusion. Hard to believe you're walking on a clean ceiling when you hear paper crunching beneath your feet.

"Yeah, I remember that," I said, "We used to walk all over the house with those mirrors!"

"We did it outside, too, remember? We'd jump from cloud to cloud or treebranch to treebranch!"

"I do remember that. Haha, those were the days. Oh, you remember Chuck's cellar?"

Chuck was our next door neighbor. To be more correct, he was our front-neighbor. He lived in the house directly in front of ours. An old man who was kinda creepy, but would let us kids get away with practically anything because he didn't care what happened to his property.

"Yeah, we'd sneak into his cellar and sit there. We'd whisper like we were secret agents or something. We snuck in through the cellar doors, huh?"

"We snuck in through the window, too. Remember the little hole that let light into the cellar?"

"Oh yeah! There was all this dirt down there."

"And lots of spiderwebs."

There was a short pause until my sister suddenly broke into hysterical laughter.

"What?" I asked. I was dying to know what she was thinking about now.

"I have a really good one!" she said in-between her amusement.

I waited patiently while she allowed the remaining bits of chuckles to escape her throat. "Remember the dryer?!" she blurted.

(Hmm, I thought,I can't quite remember what she means...)

"The dryer!" my sister insisted, "You used to sit in it! Remember, I was always too chicken? But you sat in it!"

"Oh yeah, I did sit in the dryer." I still couldn't quite understand why she was laughing so hard.

"I used to push the BUTTON and watch you SPIN AROUND in the dryer! Remember that?"

I broke out in loud, unabashed laughter. I remembered that! I'd climb in the dryer, she would push the button, and I'd be spinning around inside the dryer!

I told my husband about this wonderful memory when he came home, and he said, "No wonder you're the way you are."

In an attempt to find a more gracious comment, I also told a friend of mine. His response was similar. "You are INSANE. Do you have any idea what could have happened to you?"

I guess not. But even if I did, I think I'd still climb in the dryer, just to have that memory to share with my sister over again.

Learn more about this author, Gwendolyn Walls.
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