Tales from the "Rat Children" Series

So....I'm what I call at "rat child." My family (sister's) completely know and understand what this means and now so does the hubs. I can easily call myself a "rat" child and have no problem whatsoever with it. Let me explain. I grew up in the late 70's and 80's. I did not have what you would call an "overprotective" mom. Mom was an English/Literature teacher and taught school until she started having us. I know mom had read ton's and ton's of children's literature as she had many of those books out for us to read. They had wild, romantic, whimsical stories of child play and imagination and fanciful things. Mom wanted us to grow up just like that...taking in the world and delighting in our imaginations. She wanted us to have adventures just like Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and Alice in Wonderful. Little did she know what that turned into...

We did have adventures, many, many adventures. I'm just not sure that they were exactly as she had pictured them. I, being the eldest of 4 girls always had something on my mind. Some purpose to our play, and I was perfectly please to invoke the rights of my age and command my sisters to be actors in my...ahem...well thought out adventures.

So back to the "rat child" description. I use the term "rat child" to describe me, so don't take offense if you were this type of child as well. You can choose not to call yourself any names, and that is just fine with me. A "rat child" is a kid that is pretty much told to go outside, entertain yourself and come back for lunch and return for dinner. We found all kinds of adventures through the stuff we found and had available to us outdoors. (Not in the winter mind you, but during spring, summer and part of fall.)

Here is the first of many of my "rat stories" to come.

I'll call this one "Swimming Pool Slime"

It was a sunny day during a month and a year I don't remember. We (my two younger sister's) and I were all hot and put on our swimming suits. Maybe it was too early in the year to have a little swimming pool or maybe we just didn't have one. I don't remember and it really doesn't matter anyway. My little sis's Lori and Karen wanted to go for a swim. We were tired of just turning on the hose (because I mostly held the hose the most and would squirt them down over and over again). I always had a great time playing with the hose...I don't know why they didn't.

Anyway it was the day after garbage day and I suddenly had a great idea. I grabbed our metal garbage cans and drug them into the back yard. I pulled the hose as far as it would go and started to fill the trash cans up with water. By the time the trash can's had filled up almost all the way the water was actually getting warm because the can's had been sitting in the sun and they were now blistering hot. When the task was done. I picked up my younger sister Karen and plopped her in one of the cans. Lori was old enough that she got into her can without help. As they were sitting in the warm water I came closer and I saw things floating in the cans...old paper, some vegetable peelings etc. Then came the stink. We all knew that the garbage cans held garbage but for some reason that never came into play in my thoughts. When I smelled the stink and saw the garbage I grabbed my nose and ran. I remember looking back over my shoulder and seeing my two sisters in the garbage cans up to their arms and neck with this look of horror frozen on their faces. I'm sorry about this part, but I just can't seem to remember what happened after that. All I know is that they still talk about this today and I always hear my name being tossed about as being the mean older sister. I might have actually felt bad at the time I did it, but now we all laugh and laugh at the stuff I got them to do as well as the fact that they did it every time.

That's all for now, but tune in as more of the "rat child" stories will be discussed.