Tag: memories

Disturbing Memory #2

If you missed Disturbing Memory #1, be checking it:

https://empressevelyn.wordpress.com/2010/06/19/disturbing-memory-1/

It’s a jungle out there man – heaps of sneaky traps making you look like a fucking idiot, giving the world many opportunities to mock you, ridicule you, point at you.  What more, there are cunning clowns who exist playing innocent to your face always waiting in the wings to sell your arse out, making you the joke.  I know a group of people like this – they’re called My Fucking Family.  No, My Fucking Family isn’t the name of some nut-case quirky comedy act or performing circus group (well at least not intentionally), they are literally My Fucking Family.  People I am related to (well at least not intentionally).     

It was a stinking hot summer and I was 5 (picture me now but with smaller hands & feet but same height).  We had these public pools near our house and EVERYONE from the area went there – families that lived on our street, kids who went to my school, teenagers from the local high school, drug dealers who dropped out of the local high school, business owners in the suburb, crims who robbed the business owners in the suburb etc.  Mum was still at work and so it was up to dad to take me.  But he faced a Bic Pob-Blum (Big Problem) – he didn’t know where mum kept my swim suit.  So he patiently went through the drawers in my room to look for them knowing wisely he would eventually come across what I needed.  BullShit– this never happened, instead he just grabbed a tea towel from the kitchen (presumably he also didn’t know where mum kept the bath towels) & we jumped into the car & headed to the pools – yes, the PUBLIC pools where I was forced to walk around in front of the entire population of our hood in my Cabbage Patch Kid undies and nothing on top – carrying a frayed & stained kitchen tea towel looking like some kind of child slave forced to work back-burning bamboo crops in peasant China.  I learnt the meaning of humiliation that day people.  And the crowd was not kind.   

But let’s break it down more: this was the 80’s in Australia, fewer Asian migrant families in the area than now.  So I already copped a big daily serving of ‘you ching-chong’ (fingers used to pull up eyes at the corners) shit at school & on the streets (Yo, if you’re reading this now & you were one of those redneck fucks, be watching your back son – my memory is deep & Facebook is one fucker of a big database).  Add to this my lego people style bowl/helmet haircut and the fact that my dad thought the best way for me to learn to swim was to just throw me into the deep end of the pool while yelling and clapping alongside the edge (you get put in jail for shit like that these days) and you get one fucking big Disturbing Situation turned Disturbing Memory.   

They say the best way to overcome your demons is to face them.  And that’s what I’ve done.  As I’ve grown into my adult years I’ve risen above and embraced this disturbing experience: I now walk around topless in my underwear every opportunity I get (visitors who ever came to the Elwood apartment know it’s true).  Can’t wait for ‘Casual Friday’ to be brought back to work.  And My Fucking Family have nobody to blame but themselves.  

Disturbing Memory #1

I say #1 because there’s more to come.  These disturbing memories may also serve to explain why I seem so … disturbed.  I was a little girl and it was school holidays so rather than have to chain me to a pole outside on the street while my parents worked (watch the news – shit like this happens in real life), my dad took me to the video store to get some tapes so I would be distracted enough for a few hours to not set furniture on fire, roam the streets looking for gangs to join etc.  I really wanted to get ‘Edward Scissorhands’ so I skipped into the shop with excitement, bounced straight over to the New Release section, saw it, ran up to dad who took it to the counter to borrow and pay.  This whole time I’m jumping up and down going ‘I can’t wait to see this mooooviiiie’! 

But as the Chinese would say, there was Sum Ting Wong.  Translation: Something was wrong.  Because upon closer inspection the movie that my father was holding and about to borrow for his child was not in fact ‘Edward Scissorhands’. It was instead a slightly similar yet notably different movie called: ‘Edward Penishands’.  After the video shop guy told my dad that this may not be the right movie (and was probably about to call the cops) I held the cover close to my little face.  I saw a lady who was NOT Winona Ryder.  I saw hands that were NOT made up of scissors. I really didn’t understand it at the time – why the lady had no pants on, why she looked like the women that stand by the road waving at cars late at night, why she was squatting over Edward’s hand like she was about to sit on a chair, why Edward didn’t really look like the Johnny Depp version of Edward but more like a drunk clown from the circus….My dad told me to quickly put the video back onto the self and I had to borrow ‘The Neverending Story’ instead – which probably had a different plot to the original choice of bootleg Edward with dick covered hands.