I Smell T-R-O-U-B-L-E

Tammi is taking a trip down memory lane about pranks she pulled as a youngster. I was not a prankster. I got into enough trouble without pulling pranks.

I have said before that my sister and I were the only asian (albeit 1/2) kids in our neighborhood and the only ones on our school bus. This fact was cause for much taunting!

Here is the thing about childhood taunting, you either act on it or dwell on it. Those that dwell tend to grow into psychotic weirdos as adults and those that act tend to grow into well rounded individuals. I'm somewhere in the middle as an adult - but I was an actor.

There was a boy, let's call him Ray. He was new to our school and to our bus route. On his first day on our bus, he sat in my seat. Now, it was my seat because I had a problem on the bus. The section 8 kids that rode my bus would taunt me about my clothes being from Goodwill (cause my mama made them) and call me names (like they should have been calling anyone names) and I, being the actor that I am, would throw punches. That got me a permanent seat at the back of the bus, away from the Section 8 kids.

Ray sat in my seat. I politely told him it was my seat, he needed to move. He called me "Ching Chong Wing Wong" and stuck out his tongue. So, being ever so calm and collected, I told him he would get a free pass that day but if he ever called me names again - or sat in my seat again - he would answer to me. Well, Ray, not being the brightest bulb in the box, snickered at me and then sang "Ching Chong Wing Wong Bang A Gong, Ching Chong."

You see where this is going right? Well, poor Ray got a smack down. A serious beating. I was, as I have told you all before, a bully. Ray got a black eye and a bruised ego for his assinine behavior and I got my seat (though I couldn't sit in it for three days because I was kicked off the bus!)

This began, or rather added to, a theme for my life "Where Can Oddy Get Kicked Out Of Next."

Well, I think throughout junior high and highschool I was kicked off the bus about eight times. A few for fighting other kids, once for fighting with the bus driver, once for organizing a eat-in when we were strictly forbidden to eat on the bus (I even baked the cupcakes with the hot pink icing myself), and a few times for cussing and/or throwing things out the window.

In high school, I was temporarily (for a week) kicked out of my sex-ed class for talking about . . . wait for it . . . SEX!! Apparently I knew a little more than the instructor and she was embarrassed. Moving on . . .

I have been kicked out of every fast food joint in my home area. I was kicked out of Burger King for simulating that oh-so-memorable scene from When Harry Met Sally. I was kicked out of McDonalds for snapping all their straws. I was kicked out of Wendy's for insisting that they did not, in fact, make my burger my way since it was square and for the love of all that is holy, a burger should not be square. I was kicked out of Long John Silvers for screaming, "This Fish Is Made Of People!" I was asked to leave the premises of the Hot Dog Shoppe for trying to walk through the drive through, and I was asked to leave the pizza parlor for starting a tini-tiny food fight. I am sure there were others too.

Skipping backwards for a moment, as a wee-girl child, I was kicked out of my brownie troope for beating up the leader's daughter. Hey, she put toothpaste in my sleeping bag, she couldn't be allowed to live. My dad was summoned and I was asked never to return.

I was kicked out of Junior Achievement - though not my fault - because a kid brought a gun and threatened to shoot me, they asked us both to leave and never come back.

I was kicked out of a band I was in during High School because I thought, perhaps crack wasn't a wise choice of refreshments.

I was kicked out of my church youth group because the youth pastor thought Led Zep. was the devil's music and I insisted on wearing Led Zep. t-shirts to every event.

I was even kicked out of my home at 14 because I dared to question mama ( I moved back in a year later).

There have been many, many others. But my shining moment of "Kicked Out" glory was when I was kicked out of Mormon Indoctrination Classes.

Let me tell you! It is difficult to get away from those Mormon Missionaries and I got myself kicked out of class. They already didn't like me because I didn't observe the separation of the sexes, I intentionally touched the "brothers" hehehehehe-I made them unclean! Hehehehehehe.

It was during the third week of classes, we were discussing certain books of the Bible and how they differ from those in the Book of Mormon. Apparently, I asked one too many questions and I was told - no freaking lie! - that "perhaps it would be better if I left and returned when my faith was stronger." Ha! I was not mouth-agape gullible enough to get into the freakin Mormons!

All I really wanted was to wear that cool holy underwear anyway . . . But seriously, who gets kicked out of Mormon indoctrination classes?

I guess they really got miffed when they were talking about some ancient written language from the South American indians in which written accounts of Jesus walking there were preserved. Being a student of history, and third world cultures at the time, I knew no such "libraries" existed. When questioned, I was told they were destroyed in a fire (Ummm, that was Alexandria). But as the ancient indian cultures didn't have a written language, but rather wrote in glyphs, no such accounts really ever existed did they?

Like I said, I asked too many questions. I made those Mormon's squirm and they kicked me out of their class. A shining moment indeed.

I have grown though, really I have. I mean, in two weeks I'll be thirty. So I am an adult. But, I know, lurking somewhere in my thirty-year old body is yet another "Kicked Out" story waiting to happen. I just know it!