Ripshit Heart

My earliest memory is of sitting in my crib. It was yellow, and had a looping pattern on the headboard and the footboard carved into it that was painted white. The wallpaper in my room was vertical stipes of crisscrossed blue lines. It was peeling in places. I pretended it was the door to "Alice's House." I would trace the curlicues on the headboard with my finger, pretending it was the road to Alice's House. At night, cars would go past, their headlights making fleeting patterns on the walls and ceiling. The mobile on my crib was cool, because it looked like a real umbrella. The pink, blue, and yellow animals that hung from it were hollow printed cardboard, and I dented one by accident. I think it was the cat.

posted by Scooter B. @ 1/12/2004 11:16:00 AM 0 comments

Hillside Nursery School is where I learned to eat Play-doh. It was Niela Gladys who tied me to a chair and fed it to me. I was coerced into playing house with her. She said I was "Alice." She put on a pair of huge white lacy gloves from the dress-up bin and tied me to the blue plastic chair with a red gingham apron and a jumprope. She wasn't a very good tier; I could have escaped, but I was too scared. She was a year older than I was, and mean. I knew she was a Bad Girl. She fed me the Play-doh from a dented tin plate with pink flowers on it from the kitchen area. With tears flowing down, I ate it; it was really salty. It actually didn't taste that bad. I think I was rescued by Mrs. Lee, the teacher.

A few years later, Neila was in my class in elementary school; she had failed a grade. She made up all sorts of colorful songs which she sang to me in the lunch line.

My favorite was:

Your little butt
wiggles like King Tut
Your little vagina
wiggles like China
Your little boobs
wiggle like king ... tubes?

She had a problem with the last rhyme, which is probably why the song was never finished.

posted by Scooter B. @ 1/04/2004 08:21:00 PM 0 comments