Verily, Junk Memoirs – Z

Z – Zoo
One year when I was around ten years old, my mom signed me up with a day camp for a week in the summer. On one of the days, we went on a field trip to the zoo. Being children, and being in a new environment, and being in the care of people who were not our parents, the leaders got us all to stay as a group. While walking along one of the paths, we walked past one of the fences of what turned out to be the donkey pen. This was obviously not the ‘viewing’ fence as there were bushes, or bamboo, or some such just a foot or two past the fence obscuring the rest of the enclosure. However, a lone donkey managed to find its way to the strip of land between the bushes and the fence. The donkey was standing in such a way that one could see it’s… well… it was a male donkey. I distinctly remember one of the girls in the group asking why it had two tails and then the leader hurrying us away to another part of the zoo.

Verily, Junk Memoirs – W

W – Waffles
I distinctly remember eating waffles for a large majority of my late elementary school years. Every morning after changing, I would go into the kitchen, microwave a waffle or two and practically soak it in syrup. Sometimes I even managed to wake up early enough to catch School House Rock reruns. Later on, the fine people of Eggo began producing waffles with syrup/jam already inside it! This was much more productive. I could finally eat breakfast from the comfort of the couch! It was a golden age of couch sitting and waffle eating. And then product was discontinued.

-next post May 30 @ 8:oo pm

Verily, Junk Memoirs – V

V – Vincent
My name is actually Vincent Justin Mitra, with “Vincent” and “Justin” both being my first names. I had asked my mom about it and she had told me that she had planned it so that I could use Justin as a kid and then, if I wanted to, switch over to Vincent when I got older. For the early years of high school, the attendance listed me as “Vincent Mitra”. I would inform the teacher that I went by “Justin”, and we would continue without a hassle. However, I grew tired of more and more substitute teachers wondering about the lack of homework from a Vincent Mitra, but all this homework from a Justin Mitra. In grade nine I decided to finally go to the office to get it changed. I walked up to the secretary and told her that the attendance listed me as Vincent Justin Mitra and if she could please change it to Justin Mitra, thank you very much. It wasn’t until mid grade twelve that I learned what she actually did was change my name from Vincent Justin Mitra, to Justin Justin Mitra.

-next post May 29 @ 8:oo pm

Verily, Junk Memoirs – T

T – Toys
As a child, I had a lot of toys. Well, not a lot, but a slightly above average amount. I actually had a toy house filled with toys (that was my way of cleaning up back then). The toy that got the most playtime was my plastic castle, and its associated knights. There were two sides: one with golden armour, and one with black. Each side had a king who, if you pressed their head down, would swing their sword or axe, respectively. Each side had two mace men, one fat-ish knight, and two other sword or axe knight. The castle had cannon which could shoot out its relatively giant rock (included), as well as a tower with a trap door to also drop the giant rock. The castle had a functioning drawbridge lever, and from behind, had a cut-away view of the inside of the castle. Needless to say, the castle was the staging grounds for many of my toy fights.

-next post May 28 @ 8:oo pm

Verily, Junk Memoirs – S

S – Sports Day
At my elementary school, at a certain point in the year, there would be a period of a few weeks where all the students would participate in various track and field exercises (long jump, shot put, etc) in our giant back field. At the time, one only saw it as an excuse to go outside and play. However, it was, in reality, training us to possibly join in the yearly sporting competition. However, since most people did not want to sign up to actually participate, they reversed it so that you had to sign up not to participate. I was away on that day.

-next post May 27 @ 8:oo pm

Verily, Junk Memoirs – P

P – Philippines
When I was younger, every year during the Christmas/summer season, my family would travel to the Philippines to visit family and friends. I remember the fact that the roads were almost 100% gridlock and that there were more public transportation than private. There were everything from big buses (which interestingly enough, functioned like taxies), to a bike with a side-car. If you were lucky, the bike would even have a motor. (On a related note, the side-cars were about a foot off the ground. Some of the puddles went down two feet.) I remember that during times of celebration (like Christmas, for example) the little shops would sell bundles of little red sticks which were about the size of the graphite in a wooden pencil. These were firecrackers. If one were to put one on the ground and drag it along the pavement, (with their flip-flops), it would spark and make a surprisingly loud sound. Needless to say, these were very popular. In retrospect, probably also very dangerous.

-next post May 26 @ 8:oo pm

Volatile Jumbo Mind

Imagining the Tenth Dimension

Verily, Junk Memoirs – M

M – Marble
In my pocket right now is a blue marble. I got it in grade five from my friend (referred to by my other friends as ‘Marble Girl’) who sat in the row behind me and one desk to the left. I don’t remember the exact circumstances of me getting it, but I do know that I’ve more or less had it with me ever since. It has sort of been my lucky charm, I guess, although I don’t know how lucky or charming it makes me. I have gone to surprisingly great lengths to try and not lose it. For the first year or so, I put it in a sort of pouch looking thing we had made with a guest speaker earlier in the year. Later on, I put it in an empty box of mints. I chose to use a box of mints as opposed to nothing as it is the perfect size, and if I just put the marble in my pocket, it would be more likely to fall out. The box apparently gives it the necessary drag to stay put.
It is currently in different ratty old empty mint box.

-next post May 25 @ 8:oo pm

Verily, Junk Memoirs – K

K – Kinder Surprise Eggs
As a child, I loved the Kinder Surprise Eggs. You eat some chocolate, and there’s a toy inside. The eggs were always surrounded in mystery. ‘How did the toy capsule get in the chocolate?’ one would ask. No one would ever go for the broken one. In (let’s say) second grade, I managed to somehow acquire a map of the magical world that the kinder eggs (or possibly the toys within them) came from, and brought it to our Show and Tell for, well, Show and Tell, so that I could…umm, show and tell. Our Assistant Teacher had never heard of the Eggs and was very surprised. Our Assistant Teacher’s name was Ms Kinder.

-next post May 24 @ 8:oo pm

Verily, Junk Memoirs – J

J – Jokes
I used to know a lot of jokes. Almost enough to fill five comedians. Not very good ones, but whatever. Back in elementary I was infamous for my vast repertoire of jokes that were either stupid (and not funny), or funny (and stolen). I was also always polite about it. I would always open with “Hey, wanna’ hear a joke”, and most of the time I would tell the joke anyway, depending on how annoyed they sounded. I apparently used this line so much, that when I greet certain people, they pre-emptively shoot the line at me. My audience at the time assumed that I spent my all my free time watching the comedy channel and taking notes. But, this was not the case. All the jokes I told were either funny enough to stick in my memory, or were brought back to my attention by whatever we had been talking about at the time. Also, the only time I can remember actually writing any jokes down, was when I made a list of jokes by special request from a friend when we were going on a field trip in grade nine to a three day camp run by some hippies. I’ve mostly grown up and forgotten most of my ‘A’ material by now, but I still have enough up my sleeve to sufficiently threaten my way out of a couple situations.

-next post May 23 @ 8:oo pm