So, here goes:
- It's summer, and your favorite television show is on at 8:00. Captain America! (Okay, okay...so I have this thing for superheroes.) So, you're out playing with your friends and then it starts to get dark. You hurry inside, check the clock and discover it is now 10:00! You played through your favorite show! You were out having fun when you could have been a vegetable in front of the television! And, since the summer months are all reruns, it means you won't get to see the rerun at all!
- For a month, the family has been planning a trip to Cedar Point. There is nothing more that you look forward to. Then, you wake up early, ready to go...and it is pouring down rain. You click on The Weather Channel, hoping the rain hasn't hit Sandusky, OH...but alas, it has. You try to convince your folks that maybe it'll stop raining. Maybe by the time you get there it will be clear. But they don't listen. They never listen. And so, you have to wait another week. (Which, since the rain lingers for the next four days, turns out to be a wise decision on your parents part...but you'll never admit it to their face.)
- You studied for your upcoming math/science/English/history test, and know the material backwards and forwards. This is the time you're gonna ace the test. This is gonna pull your grade up into A territory, keeping your GPA high enough to remain on the Honor Roll. You sit down to take the test, and nothing makes sense...as if you studied the wrong subject or something. You get your test back the next day, and it is a B-minus. A B-minus! Suddenly, your hopes of getting into your favorite college are dashed, and you know you're destined to wallow in mediocrity the rest of your life.
- Finally, after months of bugging your mother to death, you convince her to buy you that box of Honey Combs cereal, because now is the time they have free bike license plates inside the box. The next morning, you race down to the kitchen and see a grin on your older brother's face because he already dug out the license plate for himself.
- Lasers! There is nothing cooler than to think that you can own a real-live set of laser guns! The game? Laser Tag...and it is the top item on your Birthday list. You review the list with your folks, and they seem to get it. If they get you only one gift that year, you want Laser Tag! Then your Birthday arrives, and there is a big box there. Just the right size! You know what it is. You start to open it, and sure enough, there are the guns...then you peel away the rest of the Scooby-Doo wrapping paper, and find it isn't Laser Tag, but the "Laser Light Game Set." A cheap knock off. It barely works, and it doesn't even use lasers. And the next year, when you ask for Laser Tag again, your parents say, "But you never played with the one we bought you last year!" So, instead, they buy you a new pair of jeans.
- The newspaper is holding a Thanksgiving Day Parade coloring contest. The best submissions will be displayed on live television during the airing of the Thanksgiving Day Parade. So, you sharpen your crayons, buy several copies of the newspaper for that day and start coloring. You pick your best one. It is incredible. You've never colored better in your life. Rudolph's nose is the perfect shade of red, and you really believe that Santa's belly is made from a bowl full of jelly. You send off you entry, and then sit watching the television screen, never even getting up to use the bathroom. But when they announce the winner, it is a pathetic-looking entry that only won because the kid who colored it has been a quadrapelegic for most of her life. Come on...it isn't your fault you aren't paralyzed from the neck down!
- You sit down to watch Misfits of Science. But it isn't on. Week after week, you wait for its return. But three years later you try to accept the fact that it is off the air for good. Fortunately, I still had MacGyver to watch. (This disappointment was repeated several times with such great shows as Probe and The Whiz Kids.)
- You sit down for family dinner and discover it is Pepper Steak night...again! (Which means spending the first ten minutes picking out each and every pepper by hand.)
- Worse, you sit down for family dinner and discover that the menu includes sauerkraut.
- You go to the doctor's office, your mother telling you that you probably have a bladder infection. This, because during the drive home from Florida the previous week, you literally stopped off at every single rest area between Michigan and Florida...plus a few stops alongside the edge of the road...to pee. Bladder infection. Just get some antibiotics and go. Until they inform you that you have been diagnosed with a disease. Diabetes! And, as any intelligent nine-year-old can tell you, having a disease means you are going to die a horrible death in a matter of days...or a few weeks at best! And then the truly horrible news: you won't be allowed to eat sweets any more!
