I was an obnoxious child!

Yes, I know...many of you are thinking "was?!" and you could be right, but that is a discussion I'm not interested in entering into today :)

Isn't it weird how your mind can have one picture of the past, but when you see a past event from an objective standpoint, it's not at all like you thought? It's amazing to me how I see myself one way, and then see how I appeared to others and it's totally different. Specifically, I would describe 9-year old me as sensitive, maybe a little shy, tomboy, missed my parents too much to ever spend the night away from home, and reflective. Then I see indisputable evidence that 9-year old me was a loud, obnoxious clown...but let me explain.

My parents came out to visit just recently, and they brought a load of old VHS tapes with them. Ya'll know - the black rectangle things that take up way too much room in your closet, or have become a favorite play thing for your toddler (the film tape is SOOO fun to pull!). Anyway, VHS tapes are not a good way to store old memories - the tape breaks down over the years, and the low quality video you already had becomes too grainy to even watch anymore. So I'd been telling my mom to bring the VHS tapes to me so that I could transfer them over to DVDs (a MUCH better way to store videos). Yesterday, I began the process. One of the first videos I put in was that of my 9th birthday party. I watched in horror as I opened the gift of a dress from my parents, held it up and with no hesitation said "I'll exchange it!". Then I dropped it back on the box and grabbed another gift.

~Note to self: dress was never exchanged, and has been spotted in various photos...so I did not win that one.~

Next gift, I pushed the card aside and started to open the box. Someone pointed out that I hadn't opened the card...and I told them that "I don't like cards". Yeah. Who needs to know who a gift is from, and why even pretend to care about the well-wishes of friends. Geez. I think at that point I must have gotten "a look" from my mom, because I started reading the cards - but I did so in some french/Italian/opera voice which seemed to absolutely crack-up the other tweens that were present...but I was embarrassed for me as I watched. *sigh*

The final proof that I was an obnoxious child came in the form of a gift from my Uncle Rick. One of the little trinkets was Nic-L-Nips (I hope I spelled that right). Remember those? Wax bottles with colored-sugary-death-juice inside? Those were GOOD! So I pulled them out of the bag, tore one off for myself, and passed them around to the other girls that were longing for their daily allowance of high-fructose corn syrup. After they had taken their share, there were two bottles left. My mom asked if anyone else wanted to try one. In the video you can hear my Uncle Rick (the GIVER of the gift), say that he'd like to try one. Now - pause - common courtesy would tell you that when the giver of said gift would like to try something from the gift, it is not just expected but MORALLY REQUIRED to share with that person.

BUT 9-year old me didn't get that.

I took the last two, handed one to a friend and kept the last one for myself.

Obnoxious? Yes. Evil? Quite possibly!

I'm still considering calling my Uncle and apologizing for my moral failure of 20 years ago.

This was the dress that I planned on exchanging...