LTL 129: Your Past Makes You Human

After the snafu this past week of failing to release the previous episode, I got to thinking about other things I’ve done that were easier to hide. Some stuff is so embarrassing, it’s easy to understand why a human will hide it. Other things are so horrendous that we would be horrified if anyone ever discovered it. There’s a lot of it that is just plain stupid. But one thing is for certain: your past makes you human.

Can you imagine your dog thinking “I hope no one saw me dragging my butt across that new rug in the living room last week!” Note to self: make sure no one is in the room when I need a little cleanup. Or do you think your cat is hiding from embarrassment because you posted that video where he fell of the counter?

It’s a uniquely human characteristic. I’ve done some stupid stuff. And they are things you would never know about if I didn’t tell you here. I started doing stupid stuff at an early age: dirt clod wars anyone? Any BB gun infantrymen out there listening today? How about roof jumpers? You know who I’m talking to…especially if you had a trampoline.

One of my earlier moments of human brilliance was when I used my dad’s two-wheeler (moving dolly) to pry up one end of the concrete lid that covered our septic system. I really wanted to see what was in there. The problem is that I couldn’t manage to lift it off by myself. I was only a little guy, probably six or seven.

So, I got my sister Jodi to help. I pried up one side and had her put her hands under it so I could go pry up the other side and then we would discover what was under that lid! Unfortunately, her little four-year-old fingers couldn’t hold it either and she started screaming! So, I ran to get Dad to take it off her fingers.

Jodi always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time with me. So here’s one for the record books and I’m praying my folks aren’t listening to this episode. My sister and I were pretty young and she had broken her leg skiing that winter. THAT was not my fault.

She had a spiral fracture from a binding that didn’t pop off when the ski was turning…and turning…and turning…ouch! It was the beginning of summer now and she was still in an ankle-to-hip cast. This becomes an important fact momentarily.

The entrance to our neighborhood was right off a very busy street on the north side of Denver. Our next-door neighbor lived on the corner next to that busy street. Because that street dropped over a hill just past the entrance to our neighborhood, her backyard was elevated several feet above the street surface.

It was dark. Our parents had company and what were a bored boy and his sister on crutches to do? You do things in the dark that you would never do during the day. Actually, you do things that you would never do again no matter what time of day it is! I’m pretty sure you have to be human to realize this.

Jodi and I went out of our backyard into the neighbor’s backyard. I swear, there was no malicious intent at this point…just tremendous opportunity. So as we are watching the cars go by, we are standing on some dirt…and rocks. Rocks. A badly behaving human’s best buddy. So I pick up a few of these little gems and do what you only wish you could have done.

I toss them as high into the air as I possibly can. Over the road. Let’s see what happens. In fact, I can’t recall how many I threw before one connected with a target. And boy did it cause a stir! A real hornet’s nest at that point. SMACK! It wasn’t a big rock, but I can still hear it. Then squealing breaks. Then a lot of swearing.

And I was running. I was almost in the backdoor of our house when I realized that Jodi was missing! She did her best to beat it out of there as fast as she could, but the crutches had slowed her down. It turns out that she only made it t