Kids Say (And Think) The Darndest Things...

My roommate was telling a story today about when she was little and her older brothers and some other kids were talking about what they wanted to be when they grew up. When they asked her the question, she replied that she would like to be a shovel.

We later talked about birthdays and I said how difficult it was for me when I young to grasp the idea that my sister's birthday came before mine every year, even though I was older. I can remember sassily saying to my mom "I guess I'll just be the younger sister then if you're always going to celebrate her birthday first!"

This got me thinking about how skewed your perceptions of things can be when you're a child, from the passage of time to the personification of inanimate objects. I then remembered another misconception I had when I was younger- what it would be like to be drunk.

When I was about twelve years old I was home by myself one day and decided I wanted to find out what it would be like to get drunk. I proceeded to pour about a shot and a half of vodka into a glass of Pepsi (then added water to the bottle of vodka so that no one would ever know some was missing) and chugged it down.

I had this fantastic image of what it would be like once the alcohol took effect- basically it was similar to the Home Alone montage when Kevin realizes he made his family disappear and runs around his house waving his arms and jumping on beds. I saw myself tearing through the house, breaking stuff, throwing things, overturning furniture, all the while laughing hysterically with disregard for consequences. I braced myself for the beginning of my rampage, sitting on the couch, concentrating on any changes I might feel.

After half an hour I just felt really warm and was pretty disappointed with the whole thing. I decided to stick with things I knew I would definitely enjoyed and opened a package of Rainbow Chips Deluxe cookies and sat down to watch Maury Povich.

Though I am still baffled almost daily by the passage of time, I now know that being drunk is really only fun with equally drunk companions. And if you're wondering, I have yet to experience a destructive, drunken frenzy (but I still have hope), and my roommate eventually resigned herself to being a speech therapist, though I have caught her staring wistfully at garden tools from time to time.