Nilla -- The Director and Mastermind

I should probably tell you that my dad says I'm just like his mother: bossy and controlling. While I will admit to having some control issues (usually over things I cannot control), I don't think I'm controlling in the way he means :). However, I do point out to him that it's not like those traits skipped a generation and went directly from his mom to me. I tell him that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, so I must have gotten those traits from him, who got them from his mother. And I hope he's reading this :). Hahaha... It drives him nuts when I tell him things like this. Anyway, the reason I say that is because of my title, where I called myself the director. Actually, I got that idea from Aunt Hila. I don't remember why, exactly, but just a few weeks ago she mentioned that she bet I was the mastermind behind the games Brad, Christina, and I played as children. I can't say that that is always true, but I am pretty sure I can claim most of the games as my own inventions... And so, I'm going to share a few with you (interspersed with pictures of when we were younger). And, I'm going to tell them in the order of what I think will make you laugh the most...

Animal Pet Shop
Well, I'm pretty sure I was not responsible for this game. I think Christina was. All I remember about it is that, among the three of us, we had a huge collection of stuffed animals. So Christina came up with this game where she was the shop keeper of a pet store. She'd set up the stuffed animals and Brad and I would be the customers. Okay, so not entirely hilarious, I know. But I can say that I wouldn't even remember about this game if it hadn't been for one instance. Brad and I were downstairs and Christina was upstairs. Brad and I decided to go upstairs and get Christina to play some game with us. Brad said to me, "I bet we're going to get up there and Christina's going to say, 'hey guys! let's play animal pet shop!'" So we climbed the stairs (there were 14 stairs, by the way), and got into the room where Christina was, with several stuff animals set up in front of her. She smiled and said, "Let's play animal pet shop!" I don't know if we ended up playing that, or if I convinced her to play something else...

Swan Lake Hotel
Ah yes... Now this one I take full credit for... And I'll also get made fun of by Brad whenever he finds out that I told everyone about it... This actually got started with a school friend of mine and me. I think it was Maria. Anyway, after she left, I didn't have anyone but Brad and Christina to subject to playing Swan Lake Hotel with me. So, they got lucky :). In our bedrooms in our house in Cardenas, we had closets with sliding doors. They were pretty big closets. I had intended to have a picture to show you, but I never got around to it, so, sorry. Anyway, the closet was the elevator. And since there were only three of us, we had to play more than one part in the game. Like we had to take turns being the elevator operator (because in a hotel named Swan Lake Hotel... You know it's a ritzy hotel and they have elevator operators... because rich people don't have to push buttons!) Anyway, there really isn't much to this story, and it even sounds like a horribly boring game to me now (and it probably was then too, but I wasn't going to admit that at the time). I guess the memory is just that Brad makes fun of me for this game to this day. But, it's not like he was above taking part in playing the game when I asked him to. Hahaha...

When I Take a Bite...
Okay, even my mom remembers this one. I don't really know to whom I should attribute this "game." It was probably me. Brad and Christina are just lucky they have me around to get through the unpleastantries of life, such as having to eat some potato soup my mom made. I love cheesy potato soup (the important word there being CHEESY). I'm thinking whatever kind she made was not cheesy. Anyway, none of us liked it (sorry Mom, but you already know this). But, we were required to eat a little green bowlful of it each. So, I can remember us sitting in the kitchen, at the kitchen table, with our little green bowls of the undesirable potato soup in front of us. And somewhere along the line, a game was formed so that we could endure the sheer torture of having to eat the stuff. We would take turns taking a bite of the soup. Before taking our bite, we would say, "When I take a bite, they put me like this..." Then we would proceed to take our bite and make some outlandish pose, which we had to hold until it was our turn again, and presumably, by that time, we would have swallowed our bite. As far as who "they" were that would "put [us] like [that]", I don't know... But I can say that we were successful in eating the soup... And for some reason (gee, I wonder why), I have mental images of Brad laughing through this whole game.

To Feel Her Claw
Okay, I've saved this for last for a reason. It's kind of like the slapping story in that some people, when they hear this story (and after they've already heard the slapping story), feel that their suspicions that we were violent children are confirmed... We weren't violent children. Perhaps slightly mentally off (but haven't we been blaming this on genetics, Elka?), but not violent. And creative? Without a doubt. So, when we were younger, I always bit my nails. And Brad was a boy, so he wasn't supposed to grow out his nails. Well, so that left Christina. She did grow out her nails. Not long or anything, because goodness, she was only about 5, maybe 6. But she at least had some nails with which to scratch. Okay, and I don't know who came up with this game. I don't know that I would want to claim it, even if it had been me. And I certainly don't know HOW we came up with this game. As you will see, the implications are scary. Okay, so the rule was, if Brad and I decided we wanted to play this game (and again, I have no idea why we would decide such a thing), we would say the words (to a specific tune, which I still remember, but can't convey through typing) "To feel her claw!" And that was Christina's signal to start chasing us. And, if she could catch us, she was allowed to scratch us up until we were able to get away. Again, I don't know why this game was so popular among us, but it must have been popular enough that we played it often enough that I remember it. And again, I don't think we were violent children. Possibly idiotic children... But not violent. Haha...

So, there you have it. The games we made up as children. I want you to notice that, aside from the stuffed animals, none of these games required toys or other props (well, also the potato soup, but I think we'd have gladly done without that prop). So I'd say we were pretty resourceful children. We came up with cheap forms of entertainment (even if some of them were slightly twisted). So, hopefully this got a chuckle or two :).

*And Julie has guessed the movie quote!*

Also, I moved the playlist to the bottom of the screen so it is now full-size and you can scroll.