4. When I was younger I used to do a lot of exploring. Boy what a lame first sentence. Let me try again.

When I was younger I had a pet blob. Don’t ask his name, I just called him “my blob” and when people saw us running down the street (well I ran, and he sorta bounced) they would say “there goes that boy and his blob”

I can hear what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong, you know. A blob isn’t a boring pet at all. I can see how you might think that, but you haven’t heard the whole story yet. My blob was special. See, if I fed my blob certain flavors of jellybeans he would transform into different useful shapes or tools, like a ladder, or a trampoline, or an umbrella. My blob couldn’t speak, but one day he transformed into a letter which said

“Dear Christopher,
I am from another planet. An evil dictator has taken over my wondrous land of Blobolonia, and only allows the citizens to eat junk food. Now, I love sweets as much as the next guy (especially jellybeans), but it’s not good to eat such things all the time and never to get vitamins. Won’t you please return with me to my planet and help me defeat the evil dictator?

Yours,
Blob”

“I’ll help you blob,” I said. “But you’re going to have to do a little something for me first.” This is when I began my infamous spree as a peeping tom. My blob and I visited the homes of practically every pretty girl at my school. His ability to transform really came in handy. I would feed him licorice jellybeans so he would become a ladder, then I could easily climb into the branches of tall trees. Tangerine jellybeans and he would become a trampoline, allowing me to jump down in a hurry in case I needed to beat a hasty retreat. Vanilla jellybeans and he would become a sturdy umbrella so I could gracefully float from the rooftops (just like Mary Poppins!).

Of course I eventually helped him save his planet, and we still keep in touch. But I often think back on those nights, cloaked in darkness, running through the subdivisions, binoculars in hand, creeping and peeping, as some of the best days of my life.

3.  I have a lot of weird dreams involving cats. The first few times cats appeared in my dreams they always would end up biting me. After that I got wise to them, and now I usually preemptively strike first. If I see a cat in my dream I will go ahead and thrash it before it gets the chance to bite me. Dream interpreters will tell you that if a man dreams about cats then he is actually having some kind of issue with the feminine aspect of his own personality. Maybe this is true for some, but I actually think that the cats in my dreams are trying to get me back for something I did when I was 3 or 4. You might not believe this, but it is true, and you can ask my mom or my brother.
When I was just a wee lad there was a woman who would sometimes look after me called Mrs. Lowe. Mrs. Lowe enjoyed playing tennis, and one day she went to play tennis with a friend and took me along with her. The friend actually had her own tennis court (this is in an area of Marietta over near Hickory Hills Elementary School). I was sitting on a little barrier made of cinder blocks in the backyard as the two ladies were playing tennis, when suddenly this random kitten comes strolling along towards me. My mom told me to be wary of strangers, and I figured this must apply to cats as well. Anyway, I thought this cat was getting a bit too close so I grabbed it by its tail and swung it around above my head. Then I put him down and he dizzily walked away.