Just because you're wrong doesn't mean you're lying

Scale is an interesting concept.  One of my earliest memories is of petting a cow-sized dog that ran its endlessly wide tongue up the left side of my face.  His name was Bosco.  He was a black lab.  I know; Labradors are not cow-sized.  It took me a long time to realize that.  As I got older I retold the story of this animal.  Other kids would be talking about their big dogs or their uncle’s big dog, or a dog they saw on television.  I’d step into the conversation with the assurance of an oil-boom prospector. 

Thinking of it like that makes me laugh.  I picture stepping into the middle of a heated discussion quelling all other conversation.  I picture myself as a four year old in a loose-fitting linen suit.  I stretch out my suspenders with my thumbs and clear my throat as I rock heel-toe gathering the attention of interested parties.  I imagine myself with a drawl, speaking slowly and deliberately.  “Now, we’ve all been hearing talk about gargantuan canines.  Many of you claim to have seen – or even touched – some monstrous animal calling itself a dog.  The tale I have to share, pardon the pun of course, will cast its shadow over all other accounts. 

“I was at eye level with the chest of the magnificent beast.  Its teeth as long as my fingers and its tail longer than I am tall.  I approached the creature cautiously, as any man would do, and was astounded when he seemed as docile as a lone cow in a verdant pasture.  His gaze caught mine and for an instant I was terrified.  He turned his massive head toward me and parted his lips.  I started to sweat.  Images of my long, fruitful life passed before my eyes.  Just as I prepared myself to feel his teeth pulling my flesh from the bone (this is the part when all the townsfolk, hanging on my every word, lean closer and stop breathing for as long as it takes this next detail to emerge), I felt the warm, wet roughness of his tongue coating me from chin to cowlick.”

“How did you ever get over that?  I reckon I’d’a just fainted!” one woman would say.

“Based on the detail, there is no way that account is skewed,” the town doctor would agree.

Everybody would applaud my story and use it to trump others should the topic ever reemerge.  I’d be the talk of the town.  But in reality, I was just an ignorant little kid that had no concept of how big things actually are.  It turns out, as you get older, things that used to look huge turn into manageable sights.  Dogs are dog-sized.  Cows are cow-sized.  But those memories still feel just as big. 

Youth is wasted

I’ve never really spent a lot of time around small children.  Until I was seventeen, I was the youngest member of my family that I saw on even a remotely frequent basis.  I don’t know how to talk to them.  I spent my entire life trying to be more grown up so I could be around the rest of the family.  Yeah, I have a brother who’s a couple years older than me, but that only served to further facilitate my maturation.  I would do anything I could not to seem young.  I’d steer clear of toys and clothing styles that would label me an obvious child.  Though, if you look at pictures of me growing up, it didn't always work.  

 I always tried to appear older than I was.  In grocery stores, if, for some reason, I had one of my parent’s car keys, I wouldn’t pocket them.  I would spin them around my finger hoping some cute girl would see me and think I could drive.  I could have been as young as twelve but I thought I might be able to pull it off.  I couldn’t have.  It never worked.  Even if it would have, we would have gotten to the parking lot and I would have had to explain to her why I led her to believe I could drive just so she could laugh at my age and my dad’s Chevy Tracker. 

Free

It’s like getting out of college had me blasted into space moving at however many thousands of miles a second away from everything I’ve ever known about security and the future and the world.  I felt the acceleration all through high school.  It was building.  At least that’s what everybody told me.   

Then graduation.  Just a curve in the pneumatic tubes pushing me along my lifeline.  It took more air to move me along in college but I kept accelerating more quickly.  I went from being a willing passenger begging for an increase in speed to trying to grab hold of something, anything that would slow it down enough for me to make important decisions.  The faster I went the faster I went as my entrance to the real world became imminent.   

Then, I was there.  Graduated again.  Floating.  Searching.  If gravity would have been present I would have prayed for a parachute.  Instead, I waited for a meteor or comet or whatever to come close enough for me to hang on to it and let it drag me away from the sun.  Initially, you feel the change in direction and it feels like an improvement.  Then you get used to the speed.  Millions of miles an hour is no longer desired.  I would settle for the same rate, but only if it was moving in a direction.  Space is cold out past the planets.  Orbiting on this rock will not take me any closer to the warm center of the dream. 

Alone With People

Children are not always as predictable as you might think.  At least I wasn’t as a child.  I might have been a bit out of the loop, but from what I understand, this is how parents retain their sanity.  Anyway, we were at some gathering for people that my dad knew from work.  I won’t go so far as to call them friends, because until recently, my parents didn’t really have friends.  Just associates.  Acquaintances.  Co-Workers.  Anyway, we were there.  A big new subdivision with no trees and smooth roads for bike riding and little to no traffic to worry about.  This was a stark contrast to my neighborhood with tree-lined streets and individually designed houses.  If I knew then what I know now, I would have been able to see the lines where fresh sod had been laid down in strips across the front yards. 

I must have been there without my brother because I was interacting with other children.  Usually, if we went somewhere together, it was like Double Dragon.  We fought back to back.  An enemy in most situations became a best friend when we were confronted with other kids.  Unless one of them was cooler than me, and then my brother generally went with him and left me to fend for myself against the kids’ table b-team.  Anyway, I was there by myself with my parents. 

The child of the house had an amazing room.  Bunk beds all to himself.  Those metal framed ones that creaked and popped like they might collapse any time somebody moved.  As I sat on one, I noticed that several marbles were stuck to it.  I verbalized my puzzled face and asked for an explanation.  I may have been a dense little kid, but I knew glass and metal were not attracted to each other.  Hooray gifted classes.  Turns out they were magnets.  My child-brain could not wrap itself around round magnets.  It blew my mind.  I probably thought about taking a couple of them for fear that I would never see anything like that again.  I don’t think I did though.  If I would have, I would probably still have them. 

One of the flaws of my family was our almost gypsy-like quality of hanging on to things.  I inherited it.  Anyway, the child of the house took a liking to me and suggested I spend the night.  This was the first time I had ever met this kid and didn’t know how comfortable I felt spending the night at his house.  When he broached the subject, I politely agreed that it would be fun.  He listed the things we could do and to be honest, none of them really appealed to me.  He suggested a bike ride.  The bike he had to offer me was a girls’ bike.  Maybe it had been his sister’s or something if he had a sister.  Any young boy knows it is a mortal and life-changing offense to ride a girl’s bike.  Anyway,

The evening wound down, apparently whatever we were there for was done.  I was hoping the slumber party idea had faded away.  My dad told me to go thank the hostess for her hospitality.  As I approached her, a look of unease spread across her face.  I opened my mouth to express my appreciation, but before my throat and lips could work together to form the words, she interrupted and told me that her son, whatever the hell his name was had already mentioned my overnight stay.  My heart stopped.  I was afraid I would be sucked into a nightlong awkward situation with no escape.  I hadn’t even mentioned it to my parents because I was afraid they would think it was a good idea. 

“I just think it would be better if we made plans for another night.”

Rolaids.  I mean, Relief.  The last time I remember seeing the kid was earlier that night when he took his bike through the neighbor’s yard.  That never would have flown in my neighborhood, but it was also full of old people and grass that I’m pretty sure had grown there naturally and not been transplanted.  At least not this decade.  I don’t remember his name or his face or what his voice sounded like.  I never saw him again.  Maybe my dad didn’t work with his mom anymore.  Or maybe she thought I was trouble.  Either way, who spends the night on the first date?