So, my mom wants to know my best and worst childhood memories. I have a lot of the first and not so much of the second, thankfully. I think the qualifier of “best” and “worst” is TOO MUCH PRESSURE, so I am just going to relate a good and bad story, ok?\
Good: Visiting Grandma Lang and the Michigan gang for Christmas when I was 8-ish. First time I remember snow. We all crammed into Grandma’s little apartment at the retirement home for dinner one night. Grandma complained that I kicked in my sleep. (Sorry!) Uncle Roger gave me a perfume-making set. He and Aunt Nancy kept calling each other Aunt Roger and Uncle Nancy and laughing like it was the funniest thing ever. Cousin Dana, who was 10-ish, and I visited a neighbor lady of Grandma’s. She was a little weird, as unknown old people are to young kids, but Dana knew the lady pretty well and she was really nice.\
Bad: Minor car accident with Grandpa Junkermann and Mom in a snow storm on the way home from a cousin’s funeral in another state when I was 14. We spun out and the car got stuck in the snow in the median and we ended up spending the night in the cab of a couple of nice female truckers (call signs Onion and Carrot). There were literally hundreds of people stranded in the middle of nowhere and the truckers in the area made sure we were all relatively cared for. Because I was lame, I only took my jean jacket with me, instead of my warm winter coat which I left in the car. The cab was smelly and cold where I “slept” (I got the spot near the pee jar and the dirty clothes, and ended up on the cold metal floor, yay) and just really uncomfortable. Yeck. I know it was a bad night for everyone. No one was hurt though, so I can’t complain too much. Beyond that night, every single time my parents were late coming home. I was a huge worry-wart about car accidents (a fear not related at all to the previous story). I am still a worry-wart about my parents being in an accident and freak every time they call me, which they rarely do. Maybe if they called more, I would get over it, eh?