Growing up Calvin: Want a Dollar?

In my last post, I hinted at a new feature coming to my blog. Now, it's time to get started and reveal my intentions. But before I jump right in, let me give you some background as to what it's all about.

One of my kids favorite times seems to be "Dad story time" where I go into one of my crazy stories from my growing up years. Sometimes this happens in the car on long drives, sometimes at the dinner table. But quite often I get the "Come on Dad, tell us another story" pleading and I have to comply, assuming I can think of one on demand. I begin (typically with "One time when I was bored") and the kids grin and get enthralled. Then the story ends (typically with me saying something like "but now that I have told you that, don't EVER repeat that yourselves!!!!") and inevitably my daughter asks "Why don't you write these down?!". I have never had a good answer. And so, this year I am going to start to chronicle my crazy, very "Calvin like" stories from throughout my life. Yes, I still manage to have Calvin Stories as an adult.. some things you just don't outgrow... And I'll put them here, on my blog, for the world to see. These may be embarrassing, or just quite wacky, but at least it will be written down somewhere, for future generations to look back at me and say "Man, that guy was nuts!" Each time I post one of these stories, I'll post it under the feature name of "Growing Up Calvin" so you'll know what you are about to get into.

Now... a bit of a disclaimer here.. these stories are from my life. As such, they are entertaining to me and to my kids. To the rest of the world these stories may be a bit.. tame. I mean, I grew up in a very conservative, religious home. I never drank, or went to wild crazy parties. So none of these stories are about that kind of thing. Instead, like Calvin, I grew up as an awkward kid with a vivid imagination. I did things that made perfect sense to me in my own little world. But looking back on them as an adult, I just hang my head and think "What a goofy kid I was!" So these are my stories, entertaining to me, and possibly bland in comparison to most.

Sooo.. what to admit to first? It's an easy one for me. It's the story that seems to come out of my mother's mouth the most. I swear, you get a bunch of people together in a room and it takes my Mom about 30 seconds before she starts into one of my stories. And she normally starts with this one. And so I'll start my blogging confessions with this one as well. Here we go...

This story begins back when I was in first grade.. a little kid trying to make sense of the new big school and how to interact with others. At this point in my life I was going through a phase where one of my highest priorities in life was not my school work. It was not reading, or math (it never was math!!!). No, my goals were simple: Trying to see what secrets were held, underneath the little girls clothes.

Now this was not an easy goal. Most first grade girls don't just undress on command. Yes, even in the 70's, the girls in my class stayed very clothed. And so my friends and I had to come up with.. shall we say, a more creative approach to accomplish our mission. We tried hiding out in the bathrooms (And whoever in my school thought that co-ed bathrooms was a good idea was nuts... I don't know what they were thinking) but we always got caught. (The principle knew me QUITE well.) We tried all kinds of tricks, and never succeeded.

One day, one of my friends came up with a crazy plan: "We offer them money and a creative line and maybe they'll go for it." He had the perfect line. We'd just go up to the girls and say "Want a dollar? Pull down your pants and holler!". It was catchy. It was clever! But would it work?

And so we started our quest, going up to each of the girl's in our class and asking our question. We got a lot of disgusted looks. Shockingly, no one seemed interested. It was yet another great plan, destined to fail.

Now, a little side note: As much as I strived to make my goal, to get one of my class mates out of their clothes, I think I always considered it a mission impossible.. something that I could try, but in the back of my mind I knew I would never succeed at. It was just something fun to do. That's why I really had no clue what was happening, or how to react when I walked up to one of my classmates one day after reading class and popped off the line. "Want a Dollar? Pull down your pants and holler!" She thought for a second and then replied with the answer I wasn't expecting.. "Ok!" She then proceeded to whip off her pants.. (and underwear) right there in the hall, and start to scream.. just as I had asked for.

Suddenly this whole "little plan" seemed to not be such a good idea, as I can remember the experience as an almost out-of-body experience where I could see myself standing there in shock while a pantless girl stood next to me screaming. Suddenly she was done, and the next part of my little predicament came to light. She wanted her dollar. And I didn't have it, and she was miffed. This is when the teacher came to the scene. Yes, this became another "principal's office" day as I was dragged down and had to explain all of this: our goal, our little line, and the fact that someone actually did it and I couldn't pay up.

And so kids, please never use this line. Trust me.. it's not worth it. It causes lots of trouble at school, your Mom gets disturbing phone calls and it creates some very awkward moments in class the next day (although strangely enough, I don't ever remember the girl mad about her pants.. just mad about not getting her money...)

And THAT is the famous "dollar story", the first of long line of stories to come this year. And until next time.. DON'T EVER DO THAT YOURSELVES!!!