Topics You Can Write About
11/27/2

One of the blogs I read asked, in a very short entry, what she should write about; that she was out of ideas.

I suggested some of the things that are easy conversation starters in real life. Animals are always good. You can get a conversation going with nearly anyone if you can just see their cat, tell them you have three and get them talking about how Fluffy likes milk, and oh, had a cough back in �98.

Well, I suggested telling us about her favorite pets when she was a kid. Or maybe some times when her and her siblings got in a big fight (always a good story), or tales of broken bones or scars.

Scar comparisons always work better in real life though.

Favorite Childhood Animals

This would fall into two categories since there is no way you could compare Leo, the gerbil, with Buffy the dog. Leo was much simpler than Buff, but he also never got weird on us.

When I was in third grade, I was having �behavioral problems�. I got bad grades and got sent to the principles office a few times and the teacher would tell my parents about how bad I was. It wasn�t until Mrs. Merrit, a friend of mine�s mom, started going to our church did my parents realize that Mrs. Ellis, my teacher, said that about all the boys in her class and was very close to being fired for being a psycho. But before that, my parents went into a reward for not being bad mode. The best gift, meaning best timing and it just stands out as a super thing, was when my mom got me a C3PO and put it in the freezer in the garage and told me she had a present for me in the freezer. I thought it was an ice cream sandwich or something.

In any case, one of these rewards was getting gerbils. They were supposed to teach me responsibility, and I suppose they did. They taught my mom patience. The gerbils would make noise at night and I could sleep through it easily. Heck, last year I had pet crickets (over rated at best) and it really irritated Aisai at times.

My sister and I named our gerbils Leo (mine) and Holly (hers). They both lived in their tank in my room. They were very well socialized and they liked trimming the dead skin off around my fingernails. However, they�d get a little carried away if you had a scratch or something. Leo had a secret life as James Gerbil, a double �O� spy. He had a corvette he could ride in. I say I�d play with Leo, on his terms generally, for about an hour a day. Great pet.

Holly died first. She choked on a sunflower seed one Saturday night and I found her Sunday morning. Leo was alone so I got two male gerbils from my neighbor (the same one that hit me in the head with a 16 foot long 2x4) and his gerbils were bad. Mean. Vicious. Leo died of some cancer or something after a while. I let the two gerbils who were jerks loose on the mountain.

Buffy was a peek-a-poo. My mom was definitely her master. Buffy and I would run around outside and play. She was really crazy and I learned a lot of dog games from her. I can still get nearly any dog to go crazy by playing �My head is lower than your head.� The last dog I did this with was my sister�s dog, Ginger, who saw the humor in it. Her dog Gracie, who is a little nervous, didn�t see the humor and just barked at me. �That�s just wrong! Your head should be higher than our heads!�

Some of the best times with Buffy were when we were playing outside and she had that dumb old rope she ran around with. It was easy to get one side of it and then it�s tug of war. Until she would let you have it. Then, since it�s not such a good kid toy, you�d let go of it. Boom. She�d run past and grab that nasty old rope and run to the other side of the yard. Ooh, she can�t do that to me. I�d go to get the rope again.

We also had a kiddie pool, one of those little ones, in the backyard one winter. I�d hide under it and Buffy would run around or jump on top of it. Very fun.

Big Fights With Siblings

I can remember the fight of fights. That would be when I was so mad at my sister, as a teenager, that I jumped on the hood of her Camaro. Ooh, not a good thing to do.

The most violent event, as we never really fought fought, not being a touchy family, was when as a kid, my sister opened a door really quickly and the doorknob hit me in the eye. That�s how tall I was. Oooooch. I really wish my mom had taken pictures of me with a black eye. That would have been cool.

I�ve never broken a bone or had a cavity.

It�ll take a whole entry or two to do my scars.

I�m off to Atlanta today. Eatin� the Turkey. Hangin� out. My home computer is dead. I think it�s the C drive, which would suck since I have about a year of collected MP3s on that thing and a few months of pictures from my digital camera. I won�t pay to recover like I did last time. It wasn�t worth it.