Fish Guts and Casper the Artistic Ghost: Two Tales from Dim's Childhood

Since I don't have a single original thought lately, I decided to let this post (August 15) by RR inspire me and recall a couple of really brain-damaged things I did as a young kid.

The first was when I was just starting to walk. What age is that anyway? 2? 3? 11? I don't remember. Anyway, I was real little and stumbling around our house much like I do now after I have some Southern Comfort. Only back then, I was just totally strung out on apple juice.

Anyway, my mom had these fish called black mollies in a tank in the living room. They looked like this:

These fish were completely suicidal and used to jump out of the top of the tank and onto the living room carpet. My mom would invariably have to run and pick them up and put them back in the water. This was back in the 70s, so I don't think they had yet invented the high-tech stuff they have to keep fish in their tanks. Like screens.

Anyway, one day I am stumbling around the house in my Garanimals overalls and I notice these black things writhing in agony on the living room carpet.

Now, from an early age, my mother always taught me about the sanctity of life. So, my near-empty brain should have retained this information, one would think. Instead, my immediate reaction to seeing the mollies there was to yell, "BUGS!!!" and proceed to stomp the living bejeezus out of them all until my tiny Zips sneakers were completely covered with fish guts.

We didn't get another fish tank again until my parents were reasonably certain I wasn't going to do another Cherokee rain dance on them. And to this day, I swear to you, I have no recollection as to how my two turtles, Ding and Dong, met their demise.

Another example of how dumb I was when I was a kid occured maybe a year or two after the unfortunate Fish Massacre of 1974. We had this neighbor and every once in awhile this lady's granddaughter would come to visit. She was my age and I remember being quite taken with her as a lad of about 5. Her impression was intense, yet not long-lasting, because a mere 30 years since I laid eyes on her, I could scarcely provide you with a solitary detail about her, but she must have had some sort of weird Dim mojo thing happening, because this Jezebel got me in an assload of trouble.

Here's the story. We were out in the back yard playing and she had some chalk. Now, I ask of you: Would you deny Van Gogh a canvas or Shakespeare ink and parchment? But there we were, the two of us, budding with ideas of the most accomplished artistes of our age. And nothing to draw on.

Well, except for the back porch.

"Let's draw on the porch", she said sweetly.

Now, even my 5 year-old brain knew this was a bad idea. First of all, the porch was not mine. Second, even if it were, the porch is not something on which to draw with chalk. Easily, I could have gone into the house and grabbed some construction paper or a blackboard or something. I would save myself a lickin' and actually resist this foul temptress' attempt to get me in trouble and also show myself that I had self-control and the ability to judge what was right and wrong, even at such a tender age. I vividly remember all of these thoughts resounding in my inexperienced noggin. I also vividly remember my response to her utterly ridiculous and destructive idea:

"OK"

So we drew like no one had ever drawn before. Until she got called in for lunch.

I was left there, holding the chalk, amongst our work: hers, impressionist, mine, Dada (I should have known we were doomed). When then it hit me...an intense anxiety much like that which would later come to visit me annually. My mom was going to find out and my ass was going to get up close and personal with a wooden spoon. Unless...I made a pre-emptive strike.

I didn't throw Jezebel under the bus, no, no, no. I did what any other well-moraled child who needs to accept responsibility for his transgressions would do. I blamed the chalk drawings on the porch on this guy:

Oh yes. My brain came up with an ingenious plot destined to pull one over on my adult mother. Not only was I blaming the whole thing on a ghost, which is ludicrous enough on its own, but I'm blaming this on a fucking fictional, CARTOON ghost. How could I fail?

I went in the house and told my mother that she really needs to come out now and see what Casper did. He came down and grabbed our chalk and started writing on the porch. And, on top of it all, my idiot kid brain decided to push the envelope even further. It wasn't enough that I was actually blaming a ghost for my transgression, but I had to add that I actually tried to stop him!

"Mom, I told him not to do that because you would be mad, but he wouldn't listen to me and he drew on the porch and flew away before I could come in here and get you so you could see him do it."

I don't remember much of what happened after that.

See what a dumb kid I was? I'm all better now though. But I do know this...if I ever get in trouble with the law, I don't give a shit. I'm blaming it on the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.

Who you gonna call,

- Dim.