hello tumblr for the bargain price of $6.66 i will present to you one of my Top 5 Most Embarrassing Childhood Misadventures
Ok so here’s the setup. When i was like 7, my parents moved us into a house where my sisters and I shared the upstairs, which was split into two bedrooms. I got a separate room bc I was the most territorial the eldest. Both bedrooms had these weird little attached attic…space…things that were essentially unfinished closets. they were padded to the brim with this stuff:
i later found out the company that sells it had an advertising deal w/ the pink panther cartoons. that detail is completely unrelated to this story.
fyi that pink stuff is fiberglass insulation. my mom, presumably, at some point, almost certainly told me not to touch it, and that it contained crushed glass, and that I absolutely should not touch it, listen to me [deadname], look at me: the pink stuff is dangerous so do not touch it.
i say presumably, bc i was unmedicated at the time and my hyperactive 7-year-old brain tended to filter out unnecessary information.
also, in my defense, that stuff is fluffy. like it may contain glass, but soda bottles contain glass, and they don’t hurt to touch. and neither did this stuff! it was pretty soft actually. i would occasionally pat it with my bare hands while hiding in the dark swaying back and forth pretending i had been kidnapped and was being held hostage in the belly of a pirate ship and it was fine. so after awhile my brain just sort of put the pink stuff in the category of “don’t eat it or anything and you’ll probably be fine.”
i would later wish, above all wishes, that i had heeded my mother’s warning.
ok that’s part one, i gotta go make breakfast
ok i had bantam bagels
PART 2
a pertinent detail about my bedroom attic: it had a crawl space. just a tiny little black tunnel that disappeared into the house beyond. i naturally, one day, became curious about where exactly it disappeared to. and how far.
my curiosity was compounded by the fact that the crawl space headed directly towards my sister’s bedroom. upon further reflection, it was very possible that the crawl space in fact connected both attics.
i should at this point discuss my sisters’ bedroom attic. while mine was mostly used for storage and for sitting alone in the dark listening to scary radio shows that gave me nightmares my sisters had rather brilliantly decided to repurpose theirs into a clubhouse/Stuffed Animal Storage Facility. from what i had seen, it was stuffed to bursting with goddamn stuffed animals. it also had, i believe, a little tea table. and they had drawn on the walls. all in all, very makeshift and cozy.
i say “from what i had seen” because generally speaking, i wasn’t allowed in the Stuffed Animal Storage Facility. it was Their space, and of course there is not more territorial group of people that children of the age group 12 and under. Also, i was the least popular member of the household, except possibly for one of the hamsters.
So the scene has been set: I am a 7-year-old delinquent who just so happens to be obsessed w/ espionage and bank robberies and I have discovered a secret tunnel from my bedroom to my sisters’ Forbidden Clubhouse.
i consider myself a victim of circumstance. the events that followed really wrote themselves.
OF COURSE I WENT INTO THE CRAWL SPACE
what possible other ending could this story have? one sunday afternoon when i had nothing better to do, i decided to test my hypothesis that i was narrow enough to fit into the itty bitty tunnel.
and i WAS! an ancient and world-weary 8-year-old couldn’t have done it, but i was just stick-like enough to manage. i strapped a flashlight to my wrist and got on my hand and knees and crawled through that fucker! this, it transpired, was a colossal undertaking, as i was only technically small enough to fit into the wall. there was very little additional room to, for example, bend my knees and elbows. i ended up propelling myself forward mostly by inching along with my toes & wiggling like an eel. it was not very effective!
i got stuck several times. i tried to go back several times. it turns out there is no feasible way to turn around in a tunnel that is exactly as wide and as tall as the width of your shoulders. in one of my darker moments (i was stuck behind the bathroom wall, probably quite close to the toilet) it occurred to me that i had no actual proof there would be an opening on the other end. this presented certain concerns. it turns out it is rather difficult to drag yourself backwards by your toes.
i persevered! propelled by panic and (most of all) a lack of other options. 30 minutes and 10 yards later, i confirmed there was indeed an opening on the other end, which did indeed open into my sisters’ attic, because i was indeed a veritable genius.
it was at this point i discovered my sisters were not in their bedroom. they had, in fact, at some point decided to go downstairs. meaning i would not be able to burst out of the attic to the shock and astoundment of all bystanders.
i waited patiently for almost an entire minute. and then, observed only by the glossy plastic eyes of a hundred passionless plush toes, i tiptoed quietly away and hobbled back to my bedroom.
This was, naturally, the beginning of the most woeful, misery-filled fortnight of my short and sorry life.
FINAL PART
So i returned to my daily life, content in the knowledge that i had once again escaped the consequences of my actions, like the protagonist i so truly was.
Until.
The next day.
Monday evening. Oh, Monday evening. After a long, tedious day at school, I lay peacefully in bed, content in the expectation of a well-deserved rest. Set down your constant burden, human, and rest thy weary soul.
But then. A sensation of dread swept over me. It had begun.
The ITCHING.
Did I mention the crawl space was lined with fiberglass insulation?
As it turns out, dragging yourself against 30 feet of finely crushed glass does, in fact, beget consequences. Microscopic shards of glass DO NOT CARE if you were wearing clothing at the time. they go where they choose. and that miserable Sunday afternoon of my wretched folly, they had chosen to
EMBED THEMSELVES DIRECTLY INTO MY SKIN.
What words to describe the suffering of the next 2 weeks? Reader, I took so many showers. SO MANY. Hot showers first thing in the morning, directly after school, and again before dinner, and right before bed. There was never any hot water left. i SOAKED. i SCRUBBED. i WEPT like the PITILESS WRETCH i so truly was reduced to.
and the itching would. not. STOP. Everywhere, it was everywhere, arms and legs and torso and FACE. Oh my stars it was so bad. I rubbed up like a cat against brick walls and desks corners and furniture. i scratched. i prayed and discovered that the gods are either powerless or indifferent to our suffering or perhaps are merely moderately entertained. nothing helped.
two weeks. two weeks of ITCH, before my skin finally, finally expelled the invaders. It was misery. My sisters were unamused (and somewhat bored by the matter, and told me not to go in their room). My mom was unsympathetic. And me? I was not excused from school (probably due to the fact that as an undiagnosed autistic kid in chronic discomfort, the adults around me were already in the habit of ignoring my constant complaints.)
(which how fucked up is that, that my base level of discomfort was so high that the adults around me didn’t believe i was in more pain than usual when 80% of my skin was literally embedded with glass???)
Anyway. long story long:
