Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting. -- John Russell

Caution:

It only gets stranger from here.

Lies I Told in Grade School

(aka the beginning of my fiction career)

1.   That the green juice in my thermos wasn't Hi-C but Caterpillar Cooler, fresh from the caterpillar-crushing press in our cellar. Sometimes, as I told this whopper to my horrified lunch companions, I'd pretend to pick a piece of caterpillar off my tongue and flick it away.

2.    That I had a severed mummy's finger in my jewelry box at home.

3.    That hideous, fanged Red Sweater Things haunted the twilight, waiting for tasty little brothers to venture outside to be eaten. And yes, my friend and I did dress up in red sweaters, pulling the turtlenecks up underneath our eyeballs and leaping around on the lawn at dusk, causing her little brother to scream and cower in the bathtub. (Now that I think of it, either we were really convincing or he was really gullible.)

Burning Questions We Answered

(Customizing the theory that whatever didn't kill us, made us stronger)

1.    Could we handle the tart torture test? This was so easy that we made the Vow of Loyalty rule in our secret spy club a weekly guzzling of vinegar straight from the bottle. If there was no vinegar, we'd drink lemon juice.  The trick was to sneak in and chug it without getting caught by parents, who never understood what our problem was.

2.    How much gross could one human stand? This experiment was actually peformed on my friend's little brother, as he was both pesty and the only one around with a buzz cut. Unfortunately, he turned out to be a very poor test subject and ran in to tell on us, still wearing the molted Cicada larvae exoskeletons stuck to his head with pine tree sap.

(Note to all future experimenters: It takes a long time to gather enough Cicada shells to do this. Don't waste them on your little brother. Make pendants out of them instead. You'll still freak people out but you might not get grounded for it.)

Below is a spare exoskeleton I just happened to have laying around. (I know, I know. What's the big deal, right?)

3.    How many fresh cucumbers could be eaten at one sitting? My personal best was twenty-one.

(Someday I'll tell you about the field mice in my hair. Now that was cool.)