8x365 Chris

This is a memory that resurfaced after a loooong time, seemingly out of nowhere. Do you ever have moments like that? Where it's like, "Holy crap, how could I have forgotten that?!"

Chris was a man I was contemplating sleeping with when I was...um...23? 24? I dunno'. He was pretty good-looking, but not the sharpest crayon the the box, ya' know? Anyhow, I remember sitting on my living room couch with Chris. We were watching tv, and all of a sudden he leaned over and blew in my ear. Not a forceful blast of air, almost imperceptible,but I felt it. And I asked him, "What in the hell was that?" Chris told me that he had heard women were turned on by a man blowing in their ear.

Needless to say, I did not sleep with him.

7x365 Leonard

Leonard was an elderly man who lives across the street with his wife. He had the nicest lawn on the block.
I was an industrious child, and I liked to be creative in the kitchen. This usually involved a recipe from a cookbook that I would tweak to "make it better". This resulted in foodstuff that the dog wouldn't even eat.
I had a plastic wagon that I would cart around the neighborhood filled with my Flourless Cookies and my Beer Muffins. I would go door-to-door selling my treats for .50 cents a pop.
Leonard always bought one. I hope he never ever actually ate them, but what a good sport!

6x365 Mr. Robathan

Mr. R was my math teacher in my sophmore year of high school. I wasn't a great student, but I was cute and charming. My friend Kristi and I would sit in the back of the class and make fun of the day's lessons, write notes back and forth, and decorate our binders with stickers.
We could tell that we exasperated the crap out of him, but we kept his class interesting, and he never really did get angry.

5x365 Mrs. Hyatt

Mrs. Hyatt was a the Speech Therapist at my elemetary school. I had a lisp, and in third grade I was told to go every Tuesday to a small trailer at the back of the school. In this trailer I would sit with Mrs. Hyatt and practice my 's' and 'z' sounds until I could thay, I mean say them properly. I got star stickers on each level of sounds that I made.
I still lisp sometimes, but only when I'm excited or angry.

4x365 Mrs. SF

Mrs. SF lived a few houses down from us. She had a daughter named Amy who was in college. When Mrs. SF would go out of town, she would ask me to care for her dog, Sassy. Sassy was a Dalmatian, and had a tail that, when whipped across my legs, hurt like a bitch.
Caring for Sassy including walking her, putting out food and water, and picking up her poop in the backyard. For this I was paid $5 a day. Pretty good wage for a 12 year old.
One day while caring for Sassy, I was bored. I starting snooping around in their house. It felt wicked then, but looking back on it now it wasn't very bad...wrong, yes. I watched 'Pretty Woman' on the VCR and then it wouldn't eject! I picked through Amy's clothes and found a bikini top that I actually borrowed for a few days and then returned. I didn't actually have the boobs for said top, but I was hoping for some encouragement from the top.
I think that Mrs. SF figured out what had happened, because she never asked me to care for Sassy again.

3x365 Lisa Tripp

I was in third grade, she was in second. Lisa lived across the street in an ugly house with a kick-ass cement pond in front, where we would collect frogs eggs and tadpoles. We would play Barbies together.
As a third grader, I was very proud of my Barbie collection. I had lots of them, clothes, jewelry, etc. One Barbie even came with her own little makeup case/purse, which had real eyeshadow in it!
One day while we were at her house playing Barbies, I had to go home for something, so I left my Barbies there with Lisa. I was going to pick them up the next day. Lo and behold, when I came to get my suitcase of Barbies, things were missing. Earrings, fancy dresses, a turquoise fur wrap...a turquoise fur wrap, people!
I asked her for my things, and she claimed she had no idea what I was talking about. She wouldn't budge from her story. I never got my Barbie items returned. And we were never really friends after that either. Huh.

2x365 Mrs. Gregory

Mrs. Gregory was my third grade teacher. I don't remember much about her teaching style, other than learning to love to read. I still love to read, any book, any time, and I credit Mrs. Gregory for forging this bond with books.
She would read to us during class, after lunch. She would read books like A Light In The Attic by Shel Silverstein and The New Kid On the Block by Jack Prelutsky. I remember her reading aloud The BFG by Roald Dahl. When I see these books I think of her.
I wish I had taken the time years ago to find her (she's retired) and let her know how much she influenced my life. I'm afraid that she's dead, honestly. I remember her as old, and that was over 20 years ago.

1x365 Courtney Owens

Courtney was in my fifth grade class. She had a blonde pageboy haircut and a snub nose. She was mean mean mean to me. She would insult me, taunt me, get the other girls and boys to get in on it and laugh at me together. I hadn't considered myself to be any less popular or any less pretty or any less smart than anyone else ever until she came along.

The fifth graders took a week-long trip to Environmental Camp every year. Before we left, we were asked to write down on a piece of paper the five people we would want to share a cabin with. I wrote down my friend's names and was so excited. The teachers put me in a cabin with Courtney and her chummy group, all who had a great week making me miserable.

I would cry after school when I got home. My mother would tell me that Courtney was jealous of me and that's why she was so utterly mean.
I didn't believe her then and I don't believe her now.

Sometimes I wish we would meet accidently. Would I have the nerve to ask her why she was so hateful to me? Would she remember? Would she even have a reason?