The Not-So-Little Vampire

A Vampire Story

As you know from reading "The Little Vampire", Katrina's vampire-ish exploits did not end when she got a little older - in fact, they increased! Here is a list of things she did at the height of her vampire craze:
-Answered the door and then jumped on the person there, trying to bite their neck (my friends in high school found this just a tad strange)
-Wore her blankey as a cape (but only occasionally)
-Tried to bite me, Wendy and Mommy (still does sometimes)
-Designed clothes in a "vampire and witches" fashion line
And the best of all:
-Made her bed, then slept with her feet at the head and her head at the foot so she was upside-down like a bat, because vampire's turn into bats!
I love you, Katrina! :*

Amused

(Original Post)

My Pet Parrot

A Great Quotes story. "I Don't Have any F***ing Crackers!"

I have a parrot. It's an imaginary parrot. He likes crackers. I never have any crackers. Now, you may be wondering how I came into possession of an imaginary parrot, so I will explain.

One day I sat eating lunch in the MDR with my usual cohorts, when I happened to not have a clean fork for my fruit. Being the lazy person I am, I chose to eat my honeydew pieces with my knife rather than getting up to get a new utensil. As I stabbed my fruit and pulled it off the knife with my teeth, the comment came up that I resembled a pirate. One of the guys, I think John, reminded us pirates have parrots, and so my parrot appeared on my left shoulder. As I was eating, Parrot kept asking for crackers. Finally I grew sick of his nagging and yelled that I didn't have any crackers (insert expletive where appropriate). Parrot didn't want any melon so I went on eating. Later, when he began squawking about crackers again, I moved my hand toward him, forgetting the knife was in it. I stabbed my poor parrot and he fell to the table! I turned to Ryan, upset I had just murdered my pet parrot. Ryan assured me it was ok and comforted me by telling me he was in a better place now. "What could be better than my shoulder?" I asked. "Your other shoulder!" he exclaimed. And thus, Parrot was reborn on my right shoulder. Now he helps keep the left shoulder little devil from beating up the little angel on my right shoulder. But he still asks for crackers a lot and I don't have any f**ing crackers!

Aggravated

(Original Post)

Mommy! She Called Me a Vampiring Vampire!

A Vacation story: the development of vampire as profanity.

One day on a small vacation, the family sat at Taco Bell eating our meal when Wendy, in her carelessness, swore in front of Mommy. Mommy reached over and lightly slapped her. I asked her why she did that and Mommy said, "She said a batty word". (Trying to say bad and naughty together.) Me, being a smart-ass, said, "a batty word? What's a batty? Like vampire?" And from that moment on, vampire became the stand in for all swear words. One of us would stub our toe and mutter "vampire". We would get mad at each other and say "you vampire". Someone would whine and another person would say, "stop vampiring". Pretty soon we got really good at stringing them together, "you vampiring vampire" or "mother-vampiring, vampire vampire vampire." Before you knew it, vampire became a bad word that we were not allowed to use in front of Mommy. It was kinda neat to see the evolution of language in that way - a normal word becoming profanity simply by it's usage. When we get really mad - we still use vampire, it may get a glare from Mommy, but it's better than some other options. ;)

Nerdy

(Original Post)

Human Checkers

A short General story.

When Wendy and I were little we often used our imaginations to play games. (If you haven't figured that out yet, please seek help.) One room in the basement of our old house had a flooring of about 1ftx1ft red and black squares arranged in a checkerboard fashion, so we played human checkers. We would choose a side, stand on a black square and move diagonally from square to square as if we were the checkers. However, since there were only 2 checkers on this board, we often moved around and around without getting near each other and became kings very easily. But it was still amusing!

Indescribable

(Original Post)

Church War, and I Don't Mean the Crusades

A Church Story

One day, when I was younger, my mother and I sat in the Fellowship Hall at church enjoying coffee hour. As time grew near for Sunday school, she asked me to find Wendy who had wandered off. I went searching through the different parts of the church, sunday school rooms, bathrooms, etc and finally found her in the nursery. She was not just playing in there nicely, nor was she alone. Her and the boys from her Sunday school class were playing war in the nursery! They were launching stuffed animals at each other and diving behind the toy stove and table for cover! So you see, I am not the only one who causes trouble. :)

(Original Post)

Sir Barnabus and the Grizzly Bear

Perhaps I just don't have enough stories to continue posting an average of one per day, we will try for one every two days...perhaps. A General Story.

One day, not so very long ago, I had an empty cardboard wrapping paper tube. (Oh! How exciting! - be patient.) This tube served as my "weapon" as I ran away from my little vampire sister who tried to bite me pretending to be Barnabus Collins. I ran up the stairs trying to escape but she was close on my heels, I reached the landing at the top, turned and did an imitation karate kick at her head. She then designated me "Jackie Chan". As the chase continued and I tried fending off my attacker, I took my wrapping paper tube and tapped her on each shoulder; thus transforming her into Sir Barnabus and me into Queen Jackie Chan. As the Queen, I commanded my new knight to go and killy the grizzly bears, whereupon she ran straight to Wendy. Poor Wendy was lying on the floor under the computer desk attempting to fix something when she was attacked by the knighted vampire. We now had Sir Barnabus, Queen Jackie Chan and a Grizzly Bear, but someone was missing - The Belgian! As I ran after Sir Barnabus, through the living room, I was shot down by a lazer! The Belgian sat on the couch, the brace of her broken finger serving as her lazer. For the rest of the day (week? still....) we all ran around playing our respective roles and pseudo fighting each other. It was great fun!

Happy

(Original Post)

Name That President

3 down, 5 to go! A break from the norm, and now, a Suse story.

Suse and I had lots of things we liked to do together, especially playing Name That President. We often played at night when we should have been sleeping, at school in the cafeteria, in the car and at dinner we even tried to coax everyone else into playing. This game could go 2 ways, either one of us would call out a number and the other would name the corresponding president or vice versa.

We learned all the presidents together because Suse need to know them for her US History class. As I helped her, I learned them too. We had neat little mnemonics for them. Here are just a few:
20 - Garfield, Garfield the cat weighs 20lbs
25 - McKinley, 25th is Christmas, it snows on Christmas, it snows on Mt. McKinley
26 - Teddy Roosevelt, there are 13 bodies buried in the basement and 13 times 2 is 26
4 - Madison, you can golf in Madison and when you golf you yell "fore"
8 - Martin Van Buren, nicknamed Little Magician and it's a Magic 8 ball
14 - Franklin Pierce, when you are 14 you can get your ears pierced
18 - Grant, 18 is grand
7 - Jackson, the Jackson 5 plus the parents is 7

Awake

(Original Post)

The Zoo

6 more! I may have to break this into groups. A third General story.
Everyone knows my house growing up was always a zoo, but one day I decided to turn it into even more of one. I took my stuffed animals and sorted them by type: cats, dogs, frogs, wuzzles, etc. Then I placed each group in it's own room or closet depending on the size. To help my zoo visitors, I made signs for all the animals and put them at the doors to the rooms. Then I took pictures of each area just for posterity's sake. And lastly, I fetched Mommy and gave her a complete tour of the zoo. It was wondeful! I still have the picture of the frogs sitting on the floor of a small closet next to some big boxes and a sign that says "FROGS".

Artistic

(Original Post)

Imaginary Friends

Ahh, 7 more! Another General story. Now I know nobody who has been keeping up with my stories will find this surprising, but my sisters and I had imaginary friends when we were little (and not so little). Wendy and I often played with ours together. She had two that I remember, See-see and Bomboo. I believe they were both people and I recall them being great fun!. Katrina had one imaginary friend that, for whatever reason, she named Ca-ca. But me, I had 4 imaginary alligators.

Jack, Sally, Lee and Bob lived in Florida. (Silly, alligators can't survive in Wisconsin, it's cold!) I had a little transport machine (also imaginary)I used to beam them up for visits when I wanted to play. These were very special alligators, they had many talents. They could change size, grow or shrink - this way they could fit in my pocket or come in a building with me. They also loved to jump. I had a beautiful little briefcase (also imaginary) that unfolded into a splendid trampoline. At recess they would play on this trampoline, jumping to the top of the school building or even unto the clouds! I was their coach and helped them practice. Sometimes they wouldn't quite make it to the top of the school, so I would encourage them and help them reach their goals! I loved my alligators, it's been awhile since they've come to play with me, maybe I should call them for a game of roof-volleyball!

Creative

(Original Post)

It's a Tornado! No, It's a Bear!

Wow, I owe 8 entires to my loyal readers. The internet at school has been bloody awful. So here we go, a General story.

Feeding pandas wasn't the only fun thing to do in our backyard when I was little. We often played one of my favorites, Tornado. Our garage had these big old wooden swinging doors with little square windows. The garage had four of these doors, 2 for each car area. We usually only played with one set, I think there might have been too much stuff on the other side.
My sister, the neighbors and I would pretend there was a tornado outside. We ran around outside in the "wind" and struggled to shut the large wooden doors before the twister came. Then we would hide in the garage and watch things "blow" around outside. It really was great fun and quite exciting.

This game also doubled as a wilderness adventure when instead of running from a tornado, we ran from a bear! Sometimes we would even grab brooms and sticks to run out and fight the bear, but this could be dangerous because we might scrap our knees on the pavement. Sometimes we were really adventurous and had a tornado and a bear!

Then one day Mommy and Daddy decided to replace the barn doors with new-fangled overhead doors. I was very sad. :(

Excited

(Original Post)

Stain, Get Out!

I was naughty again and forgot to write - actually I have been very sick and it's finals time. But I won't disappoint my readers! - A Great Quotes story.

One day, when I was not so young (like this year), I got spaghetti sauce on my new sweatshirt at dinner. I was quite upset by this and called for Mommy to help.

Mommy, being well experienced in the trials and torments of laundry, owns several pre-treating products. Most people are familiar with Shout spray from the commercials. Mommy also had a Tide product called Kick which you rub on the stain. So she told me to Shout and Kick the sweatshirt in order to get the stain out.

Me, in all my smart-ass glory, proceeded to remove my sweatshirt, hold it out at arms length and yell very loudly, directly at it, "Stain, Get Out!". Then I kicked the sweatshirt several times with my foot.

Mommy dropped to her knees laughing, tears streaming down her face. It was wonderful!

Dorky

(Original Post)