Memories

Do you have any childhood memories that seemed so serious back then, but upon reflection as an adult, they're absolutely ridiculous?

I was listening to Pandora radio today at work while doing data entry, and Axel F came on one of my stations.

It brought back a memory from 1st or 2nd grade, when my class took a trip to another school's auditorium to see a magic show.

I sat in the back of the auditorium with my class and peered up to the auditorium stage, thinking how cool this magic show was and how awesome that funky song was (Axel F, apparently quite popular as the Beverly Hills Cop theme) they were blasting through the speakers as some skinny white middle-aged man dressed in a black turtle neck and slacks did some sort of "magic" on stage.

The only thing I was really bummed about was that a bunch of the kids who had gotten to the auditorium earlier than my class had gotten free glow sticks to wave around during the show! I loved glow sticks and was so sad I did not have one. I truly felt left out and unlucky, and even the hip sounds of Axel F could not help me to feel perfectly happy once I realized others had glow sticks and I did not.

But then tragedy struck. The show was cut short, and we all had to file out of the auditorium without seeing our full share of magic! On the bus back to our elementary school, the rumor mill was churning out stories that a girl who was given a glow stick had apparently broken the stick, gotten the glow in her eye, and had to be rushed to the hospital by ambulance! All I could think was "What kind of stupid kid would not know how to bend a glow stick so that it would glow, but not break?" I was mad at this girl for 1) getting and glow stick in the first place, 2) abusing her glow stick privileges and thus 3) ruining our magic show fun, but also terrified that children my age could have their very lives endangered by a favorite toy.

If that's not ridiculous, I don't know what is.