Sunday, November 18, 2007

Fun Monday

Karisma is our Fun Monday host this week. The assignment is:
"I want you to take a trip down memory lane, and keep right on going, right back to your childhood. And I want to hear "THAT STORY". You remember the one? Yes, you do! The one your parents, siblings, extended family or friends, would never let you forget, live down or get over!"
I have decided to share three stories from my childhood. I can't share pictures because I do not have a scanner yet. I am hoping that that will be alleviated this Christmas. ****That was a hint Randy***All of these are pretty well known in my family. Surprisingly enough (or not) two of them involve food and two involve sticking things where they don't belong...but alas, only one involves sticking food where it does not belong. I'll start with that one.
1) When I was two I started trying to stick things up my nose. To hear my Mom tell it, nothing smaller than a quarter was safe around me. Pennies, candy, rice...I tried to put them all up my nose. Fortunately, my Mom was always there to rescue the object in just the nick of time. And then came the day that my Dad was watching me.
He brought my high chair into the living room so that he could watch a little football while I ate. He was very pleased with himself. I was eating everything on my plate. He was amused that my Mom considered it such a hassle to feed me dinner. Why, there was nothing to this at all. He watched football, I ate. It doesn't get any easier than that.
Just as the game was ending, my Mom came home. She took me out of the highchair to give me a kiss only to discover that I had a nose full of butter beans. I am sure that she chewed my Dad up one side and down the other. To hear him tell it, you would have thought that I had shoved dynamite up my nose.
She got all of the beans out that she could, but we all ended up sitting in the ER for hours that night so that the doctor could get out the last two. Apparently I had shoved them so far in that even the professionals were amazed. The doctor had never seen a child shove something so far up their nasal cavity.
How impressive is that?
2) When I was three years old I spent the night with my Aunt Gail and Uncle Marvin. They were childless at that point and very excited to get their hands on me. For dinner that night my Aunt made steak for them and figured that I would be fine eating macaroni and cheese. She was unaware of my carnivore tendencies.
According to the legend, I ended up sitting in Uncle Marvin's lap and eating his ENTIRE 14 ounce Ribeye AND his baked potato. He talks about this EVERY SINGLE TIME that I see him.
What can I say? I love steak. And he was the idiot that let a three year old eat his steak. I would never let that happen. Like I said, I love steak.
3) This is the only one of my three stories that I actually remember. I must have been around six when this happened.
My Dad was a boilermaker, a welder who specialized in building nuclear boilers. Because of that he always had ear plugs laying around the house. Most of them looked like this, but they were connected by a blue plastic string.
These ear plugs fascinated me. I was amazed that you could put these little soft rubbery things into your ears and block out all the sounds in the world. I would fondle the ear plugs constantly. If my Mama saw me playing with them she would warn, "You better not put those in your ears! Those are for your Dad's work."
Well, what can I say? I an not too good at following commands. I am a rebel. The day came that I could stand the temptation no longer. I slipped a pair of the earplugs into my pocket and smuggled them into my bedroom.
Once in there, I put the ear plugs in. What!! What was this? I could still hear. I could hear my Mom talking, I could hear my Dad's football game (Are you sensing a theme here?), I could hear my little sister laughing in the next room. This couldn't be right, I had to be doing something wrong. I tried to shove the ear plugs deeper. I could still hear.
It was at this point that my genius kicked in. I decided that the problem was sizing. The big dad sized ear plugs were obviously too big for my kid size ears. I cut the end section of the earplug off. Creating the perfect child size earplugs. I told you that i was a genius.I then put them into my ears. I could still hear. So what did I do? I got a pencil and used the eraser end to shove the plugs deeper into my ears. I could still hear. So I shoved deeper and deeper. Until at last, I heard no more. Ten seconds later, my head exploded in pain.
To make a long story short(er), we ended up in the ER AGAIN. Where once again my prowess for shoving things deeper than anyone else in the world was marvelled over. I still remember the pain of having those ear plugs in my head. It was awful. Just hideous. I believe that that was the end of my shoving days.

32 comments:

the rotten correspondent said...

With any luck your children will skip that gene. For your sake I hope so anyway.

That is too funny. I can just see your dad sitting there watching football and thinking he's got it made and WHAM! Attack of the butter beans!

And the mama...

JUST A MOM said...

IF I were to send you a quilt of soem kind you wouldn't shove it up your nose would you??????


I never had ANY of my very many kids shove things in anything.... wow I guess I am lucky

Pamela said...

you were an unbelievable child..
... I'm glad you stopped at number 3... I'm just not sure where we would go after that story. bwaa ha ha ha ha ha.

Anonymous said...

I was expecting you to say that since the ear plugs didn't work in your ears, you tried pushing them up your nose, past your sinus cavities, and through your eustachean tubes to make them work.

Anonymous said...

You were an overachiever even as a child!! And why waste perfectly good butterbeans? Why not some nasty english peas or baked beans?

I, too, remember being fascinated with earplugs, though I must admit I never experimented with them!

Peter said...

Like Pamela I'm pleased your stories stopped at 3, after all who knows who is reading this.

Anonymous said...

Well, everyone has a talent. I guess yours is to be the talk of the ER.

btw, it cracks me up that you have to tell Randy that you are giving him a hint. I have to do the same thing!

karisma said...

Im with Swampy here. I was expecting you to stick them up your nose. I went from laughter to horror reading your stories. Phew Im amazed you survived. Oh...MY...Goodness! You sure were a handful.

LIBSMOM said...

AWE! You poor thing. Funny though! Thankfully my kids never were much of the shoving types but we've had our share of hours in the ER none the less.
Thanks for sharing three great stories from your childhood!

Unknown said...

Good grief Dad's are not good at babysitting are they? Mine lost me at Disney World once. And, my goodness you liked shoving things in orifices didn't ya?

laurie said...

aaaaaaahhhhh!!!!

i'd always heard of kids shoving things up their nose but i never knew of one who actually did! you are the one my mom always warned me about!

Hootin Anni said...

The butter beans? That's way too funny....not for your mom, but still----

Jill said...

my brother kept swallowing things and choking on them. i was 2 years younger and saw the panic on my mom's face so i guess i dont think i did too much of that. i do poke myself quite hard with a qtip every now and then in the ear. idiot. oh well.

Anonymous said...

I was a shover too. I ended up at the drs to get one of those plastic beads from a junk necklace out of my nose.

I am amazed you still have your hearing. Funny stories.

Amanda said...

OMG! The ear plugs in your head sound awful!!!

I didn't stick anything in my nose or ears growing up but I keep hearing other people who did or who have children who do. It makes me worry about my son! Especially after your beans and ear plug stories.

Amanda said...

Btw, I left you something on my blog!

Kim said...

Hilarious. Even worse than my own experience with things shoved in my child's body cavities. I didn't think that was possible. You, my dear, are quite impressive!

Anonymous said...

Wow, sounds like Freud would have a field day with you ! :)

Bren said...

Oh my, Serina! Butter beans up the nose is too funny!

My brother had a thing for shoving crap in his ears. He went a few times to the ER so they could get it all out.

the planet of janet said...

i was in the room when the ear, nose and throat specialist pulled A BROKEN PENCIL out of my oldest son's ear.

omg.

Sauntering Soul said...

Thankfully, neither my brothers nor I shoved anything up our noses or in our ears.

But as far as dads and babysitting? My dad and grandfather were in charge once and they paid the lady across the street to change the diapers of me and my cousin.

Tiggerlane said...

Like Pamela - I wondered about future....things....

TOO FUNNY! I just KNEW what you were going to do with those earplugs!

Anonymous said...

Ouch!!! My daughter stuck a lego up her nose - but I've managed to avoid any food situations!

And the earplugs - I can just imagine the pain.

Sandy said...

Cheerios. My daughter's shove it up your nose item of choice was cheerios. Thanks for making me laugh out loud.

Anonymous said...

Now see, if I was the crass type, I'd say something about how you seem to like inserting things. Just as well I'm too classy for that.

Molly said...

My you were a little pistol. Your stories remind me how hard it is to be a parent.

I hope that you get your scanner for Christmas. That and a digital camera are pluses (necessities?)for Fun Monday posts.

alisonwonderland said...

i'm so glad that none of my children was a shoving-things-type! :)

MamaGeek @ Works For Us said...

Serina. You were right. YOU ARE A GENIUS. This was so funny. The visual of you going to the ER ... AGAIN is just too much! Your poor parents!

Anonymous said...

Ditto Alison. In our hometown a child DIED from shoving something up his nose, which somehow went down his windpipe!

I can't believe you had three GREAT stories to tell...I must've been the most boring kid on earth!

Crossin' my fingers Santa brings you that scanner--pictures of this kind of thing would be priceless!

Alta said...

I wasn't a shover. LOL
I was a cusser!

Jo Beaufoix said...

Hee hee, and ouch. I love it how kids think.
Miss M (2 shoved a load of peas up her nose once. We didn't know until she sneezed. She was like a mini missile launcher. It was mad. We had to try not to laugh as God knows what else she'd have shoved up there.

Debs said...

OUCH! How funny.