2nd day back at work and it's really not that bad ... I mean, really. I'm sitting at my desk drinking a fabulous cup of coffee typing this up. Oh how hard my life is. I haven't typed anything up for Rachel & Mr Daddy's True Story Tuesday in awhile, so here's one. It's another silly one from when I was a kid, me and my friend Wacky.
We were 6 years old, and it was probably the same summer that I saved my sisters shoes. Wacky & I were trying to earn money. At 6 years old, I can't imagine what we thought we needed money for but I don't really know what made us do a lot of things we did. And I can't even begin to imagine where we came up with idea of selling sparkly dust. You read that right, sparkly dust. Let me give you a quick lesson in what sparkly dust is and how it's made. Sparkly dust can be found anywhere if you look hard enough. Just go in to your back alley and search the lane for little sparkly rocks. Also keep your eye out for a big rock. Not too big though, you have to be able to hold it in your 6 year old little hands. When you've gathered all your rocks, you're going to have to scour your house for little perfume vials, tiny bags, and when all else fails, pop bottle tops with plastic wrap. Now that you have everything you need, take it all to the sidewalk. You can't do it in the house because it's too loud and you don't want your parents to send you away, you can't use the lawn because you'll lose the rocks and you can't use the deck because wood is too soft. Pound the hell out of the tiny rocks with the big rock until you have sparkly dust. When you have enough sparkly dust, put it in the perfume vials, little bags, or the pop bottle lids wrapped with plastic. Now you're ready to make a million dollars. Just like Wacky and me were ready to make a million dollars. We got through about half a block when we realized that people weren’t really on the market for sparkly dust – and yes, we were going door to door. Not wanting to admit defeat, not wanting to fail, not wanting to grow up poor, we thought of a gimmick. A fail-proof gimmick and everybody would be excited to buy a vile of our sparkly dust. I was wearing a pair of long shorts, short capri’s, whatever they were although I distinctly remember calling them “knickers” way back then. I went into the house, took off my knickers, stood on my right leg with my left leg bent as far back and up as I could get it, and I put my knickers back on. I was officially One Legged Stacy and I had been hit by a train. That was my story and I was sticking to it. It was genius, the 1st house we got to – me hopping and hobbling – listened to my tragic story and bought our sparkly dust. That person paid so much money for our sparkly dust that we decided we didn’t need to sell anymore. Our $2 windfall was all we needed for our candy, or pop, or whatever it was we were trying to buy. That, or my left leg went numb and I couldn’t continue. At any rate, we didn’t go on. We spent the remainder of the day avoiding the house we sold the sparkly dust to because I had taken my leg out of my knickers so I could run and play and we didn't want to get caught. I don’t know how our 6 year old minds didn’t catch the fact that we sold our sparkly dust to Wacky’s next door neighbor, a neighbor who was friends with our parents. Back then, we just thought he was simple, now we know why he bought the sparkly dust. If a one-legged 6 year old came to your house trying to sell you sparkly dust, you'd do the same thing.
