The Story of My Life

Once, when I was 8, I think, I was sitting at the dinner table with my parents. I'm an adopted only child, you need to know before we go on. And was very overprotected. Anyway, I'd had trouble sleeping the night before, maybe the previous several nights. So, this being 1977-'78 and such things being all over the mass media, my innocent little self, following up a statement on the sleep thing, said, "Maybe I need a tranquilizer."

OH MY GOD.

That's right, it was the day they had feared since bringing me home at 5 days old: APPARENTLY SOMEONE AT SCHOOL HAD OFFERED ME DRUGS.

Offered me, the most obedient little 8-year-old CATHOLIC-SCHOOL-GOING GIRL ever, drugs.

They stopped eating and looked at each other; I can hear forks clattering to their plates, but that might just be reconstruction on my part. "Where did you hear that??"

I looked down, embarrassed and guilty and confused. "I don't know," I mumbled. The rest of dinner is a blur.

Later, I was helping put dishes in the dishwasher. "Gilligan's Island," I said.

"What?" My Mom asked.

"I heard about it on Gilligan's Island."

The Professor adds more bamboo
to his meth lab

And that's the truth. Of course that's where I had heard about it. I'm sure they were expecting schoolmate Sally, corrupter of all things good and innocent, but nope; instead of a student at Our Lady of Mercy, the most nun-run school in existence and IN THE BASEMENT OF A CONVENT, it was syndicated afternoon TV.

I truly love that story. Take that, People Who Ruled My Life in Fear! WHERE ARE YOUR GRANDCHILDREN NOW, HUH?