Ahhh, childhood memories. So sweet, so innocent, so…

…much like a college frat party.

For the most part, I lived a pretty sheltered life growing up in the Santa Barbara area until shortly before the age of 14. After my parents divorced when I was around eight, my younger sister, Chickenbone, and I lived with our mom most of the year. We had to be in the house at 5pm, and in bed at 8:00 or 8:30pm, depending on our age. We had chores to do every weekend and were fed health food.

McDonald’s was not on the menu. We stole candy from the local candy store because we were starved for sugar. (I hope the statute of limitations has run out ’cause I just totally confessed to a major crime. Again.)

Then I was sent to live with my father in Capitola, but for the next year my sister continued to live with my mother. Things were very different at Dad’s: My curfew for school nights was midnight, bedtime was up to me, I could eat whatever I wanted, and drink from the liquor cabinet.

SCORE!!

When I graduated 8th grade, Dad bought me a beer to celebrate.

When my sister graduated 8th grade she got a stereo.

She turned out normal. Coincidence? I think not.

I was a latch-key kid from 2:30ish until my father got home around 5:30pm. Plenty of time for the other neighborhood delinquents my friends to come over and party. I learned to mix drinks, quite well actually, and we all had a grand time drinking up the liquor cabinet after school. When the booze would run low, Dad would just replace it.

Awesome. *hiccup*

After school, a bunch of kids would come back to my house, we’d watch soap operas, drink booze, and smoke clove cigarettes. We heard you could get high smoking banana peels. So one day, in our infinite teenage brilliance, we ate a bunch of bananas, cooked the peels in the oven, rolled them up, and smoked them.

Kids, don’t try this at home – it doesn’t work. There is no such thing as Bananadine. I’d bet it’s an urban legend put out by the Federation of Banana Growers just to get us to eat more bananas. F*ckers.

All that work for nothing. It was a complete waste of an afternoon. Well, more of a waste of our usual wasting of an afternoon where we drank and had something normal to smoke.

Then I got caught smoking. My father hadn’t known about the smoking.

Actually, the bitter bitch (and reported town hooker), who lived in the apartment above my father and I, ratted me out. I’d done something to piss her off, like reject her loser son for the eleventieth time. I think I had finally become so tired of his frequent advances that I told him off. He, apparently, went crying to mommy.

Within a few minutes of my father coming home from work, the bitch was knocking on the door. He opens it, and she starts saying what a delinquent I am and then tells my father I smoke. The town hooker calling *me* a delinquent – yeahoksure.

I was completely mortified. But just when I thought my days were numbered, something amazing happened:

My father said to her, “Mind your own fucking business and don’t come down here again!”

And he slammed the door in her face!

Yeah, take that! Haha!

Then he turned towards me.

Ooops…

He says, rather calmly now, “Listen kid, you shouldn’t smoke. Smoking is bad for you, and you shouldn’t do it. But you’re going to do what you want so here’s where I keep my cigarettes.” He reaches on top of the fridge and shows me his carton of Kent cigarettes.

Placing the carton of cigarettes back on top of the fridge, he continues, “Help yourself, but God help you if you take my last pack”.

That’s JUST what I was thinking. Obviously.

I think I told him his cigarettes were safe with me  since I preferred cloves cigarettes.

Genius.

If I hadn’t had such a wild childhood I’d probably be living a conservative adulthood and I’d have nothing to blog about. You guys are so lucky.

My sister doesn’t have anything to blog about. She prefers listening to music. On her stereo.

I, on the other hand, got a fake ID at the age of 18. Good times I tell ya, good times. (That story coming next.)