That time there was a kidnapper

I think lots of people go through the kidnapper scare when they are kids. Our town's scare happened when I was in forth grade. I'd walk to school daily with Trisha and my little brother Joe.

One day that year, a some kid at Merriman Elementary said that a man in a blue car approached them and tried to lure them in the car. My mom was terrified. She called Trisha's mom and they arranged to walk us to school daily. We were told of what kind of car it was and to keep an eye out.

Trisha and I were on the case. We kept a notebook on us so we could write down the license of any blue car that looked suspicious. We met at her house for our detective club and shared our evidence. We were obsessed with the kidnapper.

I'm pretty sure all kids in our town were obsessed because more and more cases came in of little kids getting lured by the kidnapper. It was always a nondescript blue car. I'm pretty sure that most of the cases were hoaxes because I got the big speech from my mom that we should never lie to the police like the naughty little boys and girls that were lying about the kidnapper.

After the blue car kidnapper scare, our detective club moved onto other targets like following the town Jesus, and spying on anyone new that moved in the neighborhood. A few years later, the detective club turned into just watching MTV and talking about Teen Bop at Trisha's house. Trisha was the coolest.

That Time Grandma Was a Hooker

I was watching an episode of Three's Company at my Grandma Bernice's house where an undercover cop thought Chrissy was a hooker. Chrissy got all insulted by the accusation and was complaining to Jack about it. I didn't know what a hooker was, so I went into the kitchen where my mom was putting curlers in my grandma's hair.

I asked my mom, "What's a hooker?"

She looked shocked and then looked at my Grandma with a stressed look on her face. "Where did you here that word?" she demanded.

"TV. Some guy called Chrissy a hooker."

"Turn that garbage off!"

So, I turned off the tv and returned to the kitchen and asked again, "What's a hooker?"

My mom looks at my grandma and then looks at me. She blurts out that a hooker is someone who hooks things. She then motioned like she was knitting and said, "You know... they hook things like mittens and hats and stuff." She seemed pleased with her description and I was satisfied with that explanation, although why would Chrissy be mad that she hooked mittens? Adults are weird, so I just shrugged it off.

Well, months later my Great Grandma Norine knitted me a hat and some slippers. I was really excited about my new slippers and bragged to my third grade teacher that my Grandma was a hooker. I wonder what my Catholic school teacher thought about that.

That Time There Was Gorilla Warfare

As a kid, my dad would watch Planet of the Apes movie marathons in front of us. We were a tad bit young for such movies and I remember getting really freaked out when I heard on the evening news that guerillas had taken over a bridge in Central America and how the American soldiers might have to intervene. I don't remember the details because I was young, but I do remember being terrified that actual GORILLAS in the jungles of Central America had gotten a hold of guns and were taking over bridges and holding humans hostage. I think I even started to cry until my mom tried to explain to me that guerillas weren't monkeys. DAMN YOU APES!

That Time Molly Had a False Pregnancy

My mother likes her poodles. Every dog we ever had was a poodle or a poodle mix because of our allergies. My mom will talk about all the cute poodle mixes out there like a shitz-a-poo, Golden Poo (Golden Retriever/Poodle), Doxie-doodles, Cocker-poos, Labradoodles, and peke-a- poos. She likes her doodles and poos. She likes them mainly because of the poor luck we had with pure-bred (imbred) poodles. Every poodle we knew of had mental issues, including our toy poodle Buttercup Molly.

Molly was the craziest poodle around, but we loved her. One day, Molly started carrying my brother Jordan's baby toy around everywhere she went. She guarded it, made nests for it in blankets, carried it outside with her when she had to take a piss, and even rested it on her nipples to nurse it. She was crazy about this plastic, squeaky, baby toy.

We just figured that Molly really liked that toy, but then she started getting really vicious about it. She'd growl at us if we got too close to the toy. I swear her eyes turned blood red with anger every time we walked too close to her 'baby's' nest. Yep. Turns out that the crazy dog thought this plastic toy was actually her puppy. Some switch went off in her brain and she had a false pregnancy. Because of this her mother bear instincts kicked in full force.

We asked the vet what we should do, and he suggested that we put her on birth control pills to help even out her hormones. He figured it was just hormonal, and it would pass. Well, it didn't pass. The hormones didn't help. The only thing that helped was time. Eventually, her plastic puppy got old and it's head popped off, so we tossed it in the garbage. She had a few other 'puppies' over the years, but thankfully she didn't get as crazy as she did with her first 'born'.

So, my mom said that she had enough with purebred poodles and will stick to her doodles and poo mixes. I'll always picture my mom with her little hypoallergenic poodle mixes, and I'll always picture Molly with glowing red eyes, bared teeth and a little plastic, yellow, squeaky toy at her breast.

That time he spat Jesus out

Maybe third graders are too young to get the host. As a Catholic, you have your first communion in second grade. The teachers spend the first part of the year teaching you about how the host is actually the body of Christ and that the wine is his blood. You were never suppose to bite into the host. It was suppose to dissolve in your mouth. (That was before they started getting actual bread instead of those weird wafer Christs)

Well, all the third-graders were curious. If you bite into the host, will it bleed? There were many theories. One was that the blood is already out of the body because the wine is the blood. The other was that if you bit into the host, everyone would know because blood would start pouring out of your mouth. I thought that you would automatically go to hell if you bit into the host. I wasn't sure how it would happen, but I was positive that you would just vanish into hell and no one would ever see you again.

After mass one day, a few of the boys in class took the host, but didn't put it in their mouths. The teacher was preoccupied so a few of the kids were looking at the host up close. I think one kid pinched it to see if it would bleed. One of the boys told us that he was going to bite it. I told him that he better not or he would go to hell. He laughed at me, but there was a glimmer of worry in his eyes. He bit it and spat it out in the bushes to see if it was bleeding. I was horrified, but found out that you don't vanish and go to hell, and your mouth doesn't fill with blood. It took a few more years until I'd bite into a host though.

That time I sinned

I was raised Catholic, so I always had a strong consceince. Too strong. I remember taking the sticker off a box in this dime store called Tempo in Menominee, MI because I thought it was a cool sticker. It wasn't an actual item for sale. It was just a sticker on a box, so I justified that it was okay. I was in the seat of the grocery cart and I checked my mom to see if she was noticing. She was too busy reading the side of a box or something. I carefully peeled the sticker off and got it just in time before we took off again. When we got up to the cashier, I was sure that he had noticed. I even remember him asking if there was anything else before he rang my mom out. I swear to God he knew. I thought for sure they'd bust me, so I got scared and hid the sticker. Once we got out of the store, I showed my mom the sticker and she made me give it back. The guy at the counter didn't seem to care, but I felt really horrible, yet relieved that they wouldn't call the cops and put me in jail. I think I was 3 or 4. Wee Sin!

That time I was in a high speed car chase

I had just broken up with my college boyfriend and was devastated. My high school friend Amanda came down to Stevens Point to cheer me up. We decided that we'd get away and take a road trip from Stevens Point to Madison. The thing is that we had to take a high school kids car. You know how high school kids' cars are. They are usually not very reliable. For some reason the parents of the kids I hung out with (mine included) gave junkers to their kids to drive. They're practical that way. Why give your kid a good car if they are just going to crash it anyway?

Well, the car didn't make it back to Stevens Point. It was super dark out, in the middle of nowhere and we were stranded on the side of a highway outside of Portage. This was in the days before everyone carried a cell phone, so we tried to flag people down to help us out. I figured that we could get someone to drive to a gas station and call the cops or a tow truck, but Amanda had other ideas. A car of fishermen pulled over and told us to hop in. I refused because my mother told me of all the serial murderers out there that will prey on young women stranded on the side of the highway. "Never ever get into a car with strangers," she would say.

Well, Amanda didn't think twice about that old adage and just hopped in. I was in a bit of a predicament. I couldn't sit there on the side of the highway alone. What if a serial murderer, rapists, or Freddie Krueger came out of the cornfield and found me alone in the dark. It's harder to dispose of two bodies than one, so I reluctantly got into the car.

I was terrified. I saw once on a crime drama how the victim had written the suspect’s license plate on her body and the cops were able to catch the crook, but I didn't have a pen. So, I started etching their license plate number into my black nail polish, so they wouldn't get away with killing me and dumping my body. Then, I started to note the fishermen's every feature just in case I survived. My mom did a good job scaring the pants off of me to get me to behave. hehe. I also had a very vivid and morbid imagination.

Well, the fishermen didn't turn out to be rapists or murderers. They were just nice guys who went out of their way to make sure these two young girls got back safely to campus. Once we got to campus, we called a tow truck place to see if they would give us a tow back to Stevens Point. We guessed that the car was somewhere on the outskirts of Portage. The guy who answered the phone wasn't too friendly and told us that he'd open the tow truck place especially for us, but that we'd have to pay. He was crotchety all the way out there, especially when he found out that we misjudged how far out of Portage the car was. It was A LOT further than we had guessed. He was pissed and very open about how angry he was with us stupid college kids.

Just as he was about to grumble again, he got a call on his CB radio from his buddy back at the garage. His buddy was pulling into the garage when he spotted another car parked next to the auto yard next door. He saw some guys climbing over the fence with some items they had stolen, so he called the cops and started to tail them in his truck.

Our tow truck driver gets really excited at the prospect of catching these guys. He calls over the radio that he's driving in the opposite direction as the crooks and how we could corner them. Him and his buddy were communicating their locations every couple of seconds over the CB. The tow truck driver was going about 80 mph at this point with Amanda's little red escort strapped to the line. His buddy calls that the crooks just turned off the highway and our driver found a back road that he could take that would corner the crooks.

Suddenly, we are surrounded by at least 7 squad cars. They are in the same chase that we are in. The tow truck guy somehow gets away with driving top speeds along side the cops instead of pulling over. I'm shaking in my boots, and Amanda is just laughing hysterically. I vaguely recall the driver yelling, "Hang on Girls!" as he almost spins out in this cul-de-sac where the cops and his buddy had cornered the crooks.

The crooks realized they were stuck and made a run for it into the woods. The driver gets out to see if he could help and told us to stay behind. All of a sudden, the cops draw their weapons and start approaching the woods. There's a bunch of commotion and then a few cops come out with the suspects.

Amanda and I are left in the cab of the tow truck yelling "HOLY SHIT!" and singing the Cops theme song. Bad boys, Bad boys, whatcha gonna do, Whatcha gonna do when they come for you. That was a pretty crazy night.

I'm not sure what to do with this journal now that I don't live in Point Roberts. I had this to document life in five square miles of the u.s. of a. landlocked by Canada. It certainly was an odd place to live when you would order pizza and rent movies from another country. That's over now. So, now what.

Maybe I'll use this journal as a memory log. I could write down the funny stories of my childhood, but then again I love telling those stories to people in person. Bah. I'll do it anyway. I meet enough people that don't know my stories, or have already heard them. Laura wanted to hear about the time when I was in a high speed car chase in a tow truck. That would be a good story to start off with. Maybe I'll scan that ugly picture of me in fifth grade when I tried to work my home perm and polyester green leisure suit that my mom bought for me at a rummage sale. haha. Yeah, that would be fun.