Sometimes If I Think Real Hard I Can Remember Pickle Juice
So last night during a family dinner of meaty spaghetti and non-alcoholic fizzy beverages I found out that when I was five years old my parents had to burn a tick out of my right ear. First of all, these are the types of things we talk about around the Hamilton Family dinner table, things like ticks and the nesting rituals of flying cockroaches and how much Granny misses her once outrageous sex life. A meal that goes by without discussion of Aunt Lola's most recent bowel movement is sadly incomplete. Secondly, I don't ever remember having a tick lodged in my right ear, and you'd think that I would remember something as involved as my mother shoving a burning match into a delicate orifice mere centimeters from my brain.
Why can't I remember this traumatic blip in my personal history? There are plenty of totally inane details about the house I lived in at the age of five that I can remember with eerie clarity, like the leopard-print round bed I shared with my sister or where I used to bury Cheetos in the backyard, but I can't for the life of me conjure up that motherfucking tick.
And so I'm wondering what else I've selectively blocked out of my memory, how many years of things that have happened to me that I just can't remember. And I wonder if these selectively blocked memories are responsible for my irrational fear of ticks and other bugs with no measurable conscience. If I could tap into this stash of discarded memories maybe I could overcome the hysteria I experience at the mere mention of things like tornados and opossums and brocade tapestries. God how I hate brocade.
Sometimes I can visualize shadows from my past, shadows of people and shadows of fingers headed toward my ear, shadows of Donny Osmond Barbie naked in my sister's Barbie Corvette. There's this one distinct memory I have of shadows wherein my brother is lip-syncing "Sweet Child of Mine" into a baseball bat while I daydream about having Axl Rose's heavy metal babies, and don't I wish I could selectively forget that little lapse in my forward trajectory.
Wouldn't it be great if history as a whole could selectively forget its blemishes? Like what if we could all just forget that Matthew McConaughey even existed, or that George W. Bush ever once opened his mouth? That would be great.
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FM Living
the propagandist said:
the buried cheetohs bring a whole new meaning to preparations for Code Orange.
02.18.03 - 08:46 AM / 1Fred said:
I'd rather have memories of Axl Rose burning a tick out from under my eyelid than to have memories of Bush's I'm-gonna-kick-you-ass smirk.
I think I'll go have lunch, now.
02.18.03 - 08:55 AM / 2Broch said:
Some days I think that I even remember that my 2nd grade teach looked like an alien, and we had huge discussions about it on the play ground during our "King Tut Fan Club" meetings. Why couldn't I just forget that?!?!?!
02.18.03 - 09:05 AM / 3Chris said:
I think the funniest message I ever had on my answering machine was when my friend Rob called all freaked out, because he had a tick on...er...his nether regions. Ouch.
02.18.03 - 09:06 AM / 4jie said:
some events you remember and some you don't. i know i will never forget our neighbour's bully kid crying after I stole his collection of marbles.
02.18.03 - 09:14 AM / 5antisocial diva said:
i, for one, simply adore matthew mcconaughey and refuse to believe that such a greek god was ever drunk and high playing the bongos. but i have a childhood horror story that beats the tick thing. don't be eating when you read this, folks. i was born with a rare something or other that involved the possibility that my vagina could close together. each night my mother would take a flashlight and pull me apart to avoid this. i think there may have been cream rubbing involved. i am not sure. i may not really remember this, but it makes sense why i am sexually dysfunctional to this day. i can't believe i am even about to post this.
02.18.03 - 09:15 AM / 6the mighty jimbo said:
i had three imaginary friends, barney, cody and coke.
i don't remember them at all. which kinda sucks, cause i don't know ANY barneys, codys or cokes today.
i also don't remember breaking my ankle, getting severely bitten by a little white bunny, or jamming like a maniac to crocodile rock. although my mother swears all of these things are true. i do remember getting my ass whooped if i didn't get home in time for the dinner bell. i still don't much like the sound of bells.
i am choosing to forget the four years of this presidency. i'm hoping if i spend enough time reading blogs and drinking massive quantities of tequilla, it will all just go away.
02.18.03 - 09:15 AM / 7Beerzie Boy said:
George Who?
02.18.03 - 09:20 AM / 8PJ said:
We lived in Connecticut for a time when I was young. I remember my mom checking me and my brothers for ticks every night after we came in from playing in the surrounding woods, ponds and creeks, like a mama chimp grooming her young. Sometimes we had them, too.
02.18.03 - 09:30 AM / 9kindle said:
Last Saturday my boyfriend said he'd call because it was my birthday and I was very far away. I woke up Sunday morning realizing that he had never called, and I had fallen asleep waiting up for said call. He claims that he did call, in fact had a whole conversation with a sleepy yours truly, before being "blown off" because, apparently, I said I was tired and wanted to go back to sleep.
Regardless of who's right, it's really disturbing to think I could be having entire phone calls with loved ones while actually being too asleep to remember it. Just think of all the trouble that could stir up.
02.18.03 - 09:49 AM / 10Michael said:
If only I could block-out the unholy threesome I had with the Coreys in 1988.
02.18.03 - 10:04 AM / 11Gina said:
I was just about to say something about how I wish I could forget Dubya's mouth ever opening, but then, because I'm a responsible dooce commenter, I read all the ones before me, and... well, I'm all kinds of stuck on the flashlight/ cream-rubbing thing.
Whoah.
02.18.03 - 10:05 AM / 12peggy said:
You have a clear case of PTSD - Post Tick Stress Disorder. Damn them! They are the Evildoers of the bug world.
02.18.03 - 10:23 AM / 13Filter said:
This is something that has been swirling around my brain for a while now. If I could remember certain things that would help me in my life and forget the memories that seem to torture me on a daily basis, life could be a lot better. Like instead of remembering what a jackass I have been at various points in my life, maybe I could remember how to save more money on my taxes.
02.18.03 - 10:23 AM / 14Alex said:
I'd like to forget all of those "Grosser-than-Gross" posts that haunt me still and make me wake at night screaming....
02.18.03 - 10:29 AM / 15Naaman said:
Yeah, I totally forget about the time my friends burned a Christmas tree in the middle of the road. That was somehow blocked out of my memory. But thank god I got it on video!
02.18.03 - 10:43 AM / 16chunderchud said:
Apparently, I've forgotten about the raging fire that permanently disfigured my face when I was little. At least that's why my parents say I'm so damn ugly. Usually, I have a pretty good memory, though -- so I have my suspicions...
02.18.03 - 10:53 AM / 17Ariel said:
Unlike Anti-Social Diva, the only reason I LIKE Matthew Mcconaughey is because of the whole drunk stoned naked bongos incident. Go Hollywood hippies!
02.18.03 - 11:01 AM / 18jon said:
american history does a great job of selectively forgetting it's blemishes, and i don't think it has done us much good.
what did you learn about the native americans?
02.18.03 - 11:04 AM / 19Kerry said:
I know exactly what you mean.
My mom once told me that when I was 3, she took me to Kmart, and I got lost. She found me taking a dump in the middle of a clothing rack, and we had to high-tail it out of there.
I have no memory of this. Yet, I do remember eating kool-aid out of a tropical punch package because I thought the rainbow colors on it where so pretty, and asking for turkey skin at Christmas when I was 4, but only because my Aunt Eileen did it and I thought she was so cool.
I don't get it.
02.18.03 - 11:05 AM / 20April said:
The only thing I would absolutely love to forget from my childhood is the theme song to Three's Company. Once you get "come and knock on our door, we've been waiting for you" stuck in your head, it's hell trying to get it back out.
02.18.03 - 11:07 AM / 21Heather #2 said:
Antisocial Diva: drunk, high, and playing the bongos was the best thing Matthew McConaughey has ever done.
Broch: my first glance was sure it saw "King TIT Fan Club".
02.18.03 - 11:28 AM / 22Neurojack said:
I. hate. Peanut Butter.
I hate the smell, the taste - everything. Recently I was informed (by 'mom knows best') that in my single-digit-years I LOVED 'ki-ki butter'. WHAT? For the life of me I can't EVER recall liking it, or even having a cutesy kiddie mnemonic for it. Have I blocked it out?!...permanently erased it from my DASD? Some day I will remember, and will know I have been living a lie.
02.18.03 - 11:31 AM / 23Miss Mea-Mea said:
I once innocently asked my mother, "Why does our cat have such a short tail?" And she looked at me like one would look at a drunk who went on a bender, blacked out, and burned all of Chicago.
When I was three, apparently I slammed Kitty's tail in a door ON PURPOSE. Then, as the cat tore around the house yowling, I went running to Mom with the bloody stump in my chubby three-year old fist.
What kind of deviant horror does something like that?
02.18.03 - 11:33 AM / 24Autobiographical Dictionary said:
Doesn't Matthew McConaughey get a pass for his role in "Dazed and Confused?"
02.18.03 - 11:45 AM / 25kmel said:
There is nothing irrational about tick-fear.
02.18.03 - 11:48 AM / 26Sheila said:
Oh great...
"...where the kisses are hers and hers & his...."
02.18.03 - 11:49 AM / 27mkg said:
i had a tick burnt out of my ear once too, when i was but a lad. medieval, no?
there are lots of things that i vaguely remember my parents doing, or suggesting, like answers to common question that were probably responded to with utter bullshit. sometimes that bothers me. but then, i just say, "i love my parents" and have another swig of the kool-aid.
thanks for the memories.
02.18.03 - 11:52 AM / 28Cros said:
When I was a kid, I used to go with my parents and sister up to visit with my aunt, uncle, and cousins at a vacation home they had in Maine. They used to have a small dock and "swimming area", which consisted of a large square patch where they would dump sand and spread it out over the bottom of the lake. If you happen to go off that patch -- which happened about once a season (you only needed once) -- you would step in the collected ooze of silt and rotting leaves the covered the bottom of the lake. Your reward for this misdead: leeches. I certainly remember my cousins screeming every time it happened to them. And the excitement of some adult having to yank or burn off the parasitic buggy from some girl's foot. Even though it happened to me numerous times also, I don't remember. However, I have had the occasional nightmare about leeches on my feet. I'm sure there is the possibility of some deep metaphorical symbolism here, but probably not. Just leftover "muck" from the bottom of the "lake"...
02.18.03 - 11:57 AM / 29Danika said:
I'm with Filter on this... I wish I could block out the torturous memories of my most embarrassing moments.. (ie. shitting all over myself because I was wearing over alls and couldn't get them undone quick enough in grade 2) and remember useful things instead.
02.18.03 - 11:58 AM / 30