Countdown to 100 #1: Humiliating Throwback Thursday #3

Well, we've almost made it to 100 posts! 

Today, on a very special episode of Humiliating Throwback Thursdays, I'm going to share a piece that's very close to my heart.

The heart is the organ that barfs, right?

Today's dose of cringe-inducing nonsense is entitled "Found: Missing?"

It hits on all of the three themes I brought up in yesterday's post (conveniently located here, in case you missed it), although #3 isn't touched on in the section I've included, and her "sibling" is more of an adopted daughter.

One reason I find this piece particularly awful and hilarious and tragic is because I remember sitting down and saying to my fourteen-year-old self, "Ok, write your ideal life." This drab piece of sadness was genuinely my best effort at wish-fulfillment.

Without further fanfare, I give you two chapters of "Found: Missing?"

(A title in which punctuation rivals the number of actual words = fourteen-year-old Emily's idea of LITERARY GENIUS.)

One more note: I was going to do my hilarious current commentary in red, but... I just can't. It's too gosh darn sad. But I did want to note that I used the wrong "its" every damn time I wrote the word. Please take note! THIS IS THE WRONG ITS!

Also I used a hyphen every time I meant to use an em-dash. I actually had forgotten how far back my love-affair with the em-dash went...

Chapter One

         I looked up at the sky and shuddered. The deep, light blue of this morning was gone. In it’s place were gray clouds, dark and ominous, covering the entire domed sky. Suddenly, the rain started coming down. Wonderful. Hugging my bare arms around myself, I started to run towards 106 Belle avenue.

          Living in Arlington is the strangest experience I’ve ever had. The thing about this town is, even though it’s population 200, no one cares. There is not one single person here who CARES! Do you want proof? The police station KNOWS that a fourteen year old girl has run away from home and is living in an abandoned cottage. So do her parents. But do they bother to make her go home? No. That’s the reason I ran away-even my parents just don’t care.

         It’s like a little kid’s dream. If you want to smoke pot behind the bar, talk to your dad. He might have an extra joint to lend you. Or ask your mom. She can show you which plant in the garden it is. There have been five murders in the last month. Not one single investigation. I tell you, nobody gives a horses rear end. So I have to care myself-I have to hitchhike to church once in a while, sometimes get a job, which I’m not allowed to but can, and use the money to buy books, so that I can get out of here someday. You see, there’s no school. There was, but no one came-except me. Even the teachers played hooky! Sound like a dream world to you? Try living the dream-it’s one that quickly devolves into a nightmare.

         I was wrong, I guess. One person has always cared-my dad. He cares about every single thing I do-wrong. According to him, everything. I can’t do a single thing right. If dad was here, he’d be telling me that I’m jogging improperly. After fourteen years of that, I don’t even need him there anymore. It’s like he’s stuck in my brain, verbally kicking my butt every time I do anything imperfectly. Most of the time I can drown him out. It’s getting easier.

         I had lived in the abandoned cottage at 106 Belle for six months when the storm came. It was a beautiful little house, with a picket fence and overrun rose garden, but no one had cared enough to uproot themselves from their crumbling shacks. I had known the lady that used to live there. Miss Emma was the only name she ever went by. Before she died, I didn’t have to carpool to church. And because of her, even state police that did care couldn’t take me away from the cottage-she had left everything of hers to me. She always told me “Never give up hope. Promise me that you’ll always CARE.” and I promised.

         My parents never named me. According to the state records, I was born dead. My mom had me at home, and I didn’t cry when I was born so she declared me dead. But I wasn’t. They found that out when they were fitting me out in a cardboard box. I started crying as loud as I could. I only know this because Miss Emma was a midwife and she always cared to help the new mothers. Miss Emma always called me Missy, because of what a smart aleck I was. What she gave me in her will was the only present I had ever recieved, aside from the pink fuax leather bible Pastor Art gave me when I was baptized. I have never heard a man preach joys in such a gray voice.

         The roses in the garden of my cottage had grown to all but engulf the picket fence, but I had kept the gate carefully clipped. This I now swung open. With a sinking heart, I saw an upside down carseat on my porch. People were forever throwing their junk onto Miss Emma’s property. I walked onto the porch, gratefull that the overhang was blocking the rain. Not that it mattered. I was soaking by now. Bending down, I attempted to pick up the carseat. But I was surprised to feel that it was amazingly heavy.

         I flipped it over. Oh, great! Somebody had dumped their dead baby on me, too. But, reaching down to unbuckle the strap, I was startled at the feeling of rising and falling stomach. A sleeping baby, on my porch? Someone from out of town must have left it. No one here would care enough to get rid of their baby this way. I hoisted the warm baby to my shoulder and grabbed the carseat with my other arm.

         Once I was inside, I set the baby down on the rose-print sofa and lit the gas stove. I was opening a can of tomato soup when I heard the baby crying. Running back into the tiny living room, I saw it wriggling around in it’s yellow blanket, screaming with it’s itiny face scrunched up. My first instinct was to plop it back on the porch and see hao it liked that, but then I remembered my promise to Miss Emma. Akwardly, I scooped the baby up and swiveled back and forth with it.

         The baby had a thick mop of dark brown hair piled on it’s head. It looked like a very young baby to have so much hair. Almost immediately, the red, blotchy face was gone and it’s eyes opened. I have been told that babies don’t develope eye color until they are one year old. Not true! This baby’s eyes were browner than dark chocolate, and they were the biggest, sweetest eyes I’d ever seen. It smiled at me with it’s tiny rosebud mouth and opened and closed it’s hands randomly. I looked at the ting fingers, which ended in five of the sweetest nails on earth. They weren’t any wider than a third of my own. The baby was nice and fat, warm despite the cold room. I shivered, thinking about the horrible kind of person that would dump a baby on a doorstep in the middle of a storm and leave.

         I knew the minute that I picked the baby up that I was going to have problems. It’s diaper was obviously full, and I had no spares on hand. Soon, it dropped back to sleep and I ran to stick my soup on low heat on the stove. There were some clean rags in the kitchen drawers, but nothing that would work as a diaper. I ran up the short flight of stairs to the diminutive second story and into the room I slept in. In the bathroom were some threadbare hantowels, and I knew that they’d have to do, stuffed with toilet paper and pinned with clothespins, until I could get into town.

         I raced back down the stairs, materials in hand, to stir my boiling soup and snatch it off of the stove. Then I went back into the living room and resqued the baby from rolling off the edge of the couch. While it slept, I clumsily changed it’s-rather, her’s-diaper. “So, you’re a girl.” I whispered to her. Now, what should I name her? Somehow, even though her eyes and hair were brown, the pink spots in her cheeks put me in mind of rosebuds. “I’m going to call you Rosie, for now.”

Chapter Two

         The next day, after a hectic and near sleepless night of rocking and spoon feeding poatmeal, I set out to look for work. The cookie jar was empty, aside from two dollars that I was saving for an absolute emergency. I had used some rope to lash Rosie, in her carseat, to my back. By the time I reached Merrline’s Thrift and Gift, I was exausted. I pushed through te door and listened to the familiar jingle of bells. “Hi, Merrline.” I said. “Hello. Cute baby.”

 “Thanks. Found it on my doorstep.”

“Hmm. Classic.” whatever that meant. “Got work?” I asked. We never conversed in complete sentences. People seldom do, I’ve noticed. “Yeah. Take over now, ‘f-you like.”

“How long, how much?”

 “Until closing. Twenty.”

 “Plus five percent.”

“Done.”

         I loved working at the thrift store. If nothing else, people cared about their stuff. Plus, alot of times people that didn’t live in Arlington came in. That was nice-they talked to you and seemed interested. I always felt like screaming at them, “Take me with you!”.

         I had sold fifty dollars worth of stuff by ten o’clock. That meant that I had earned $2.50 in commision. I didn’t get a lunch break, so I paid a tourists son fifty cents to run over to Eat & Run to buy me a chicken sandwich. That I ate while showing his mother how a crystal hung on fishwire made rainbows.

         Rosie was good most of the day. I gave her a crust of chicken sandwich to suck on while I worked. I saw a cloth thing in the window, which Merrline informed me was a sling-a baby carrying device. I spent eleven of my thirty seven dollars on it and sold the twisted carseat to Merrline for three. By six thirty, I was walking to Lesismore’s grocery with twenty nine dollars in my pocket. I bought a small package of the cheapest brand of diapers, more oatmeal, a box of wet wipes, some baby formula, and dry cereal and milk for me. After we left, I still had ten dollars for the cookie jar.

         When I arrived home, wet again and tired as I cold be, I almost groaned out loud. There was another hulk on my doorstep. But this one turned out to be a good thing-it was a diaper bag, full of bottles and diapers and pacifiers and three extra sleepers. I couldn’t believe it. I turned my face up into the rain and shouted “Thank you!” into the angry depths of the thundering sky. Then I turned and walked inside.

         Miss Emma’s old cat, Lady, was lying on the sofa looking contented. I walked over and unslung the sling next to her. “Hi there, Lady cat! You are looking quite fat!” then my heart skipped. I hadn’t fed her in a while. I knew that Lady wasn’t as old as she looked, with her fluffy gray fur. “Are you...?” I asked gravely. She purred and rubbed her head against my hand. “I hope so.” I smiled, then got up to put the groceries away and open a can of tuna for Lady.

         A few weeks passed without much incident. I worked at the Thrift and Gift when I needed to, and stayed home when I could. It was raining nearly every day now. Rosie was sweet and fat. Soon, Lady had kittens- six of them, black and gray. I remembered Stalion, Miss Emma’s favorite cat. He had been glosst and sleek, black as coal. They had been very close. Stalion was like a gaurd dog to her. They had died on the same day. I secretly believed that Miss Emma had just not let herself go until Stalion had snuck into her hospital bed. But now it looked like Stalion had lived on! Here he had three sons and three daughters-two gray, two black, and two mixes. I was amazed- not only were there an even number of boys and girls, there was one of each variety for each sex- a little black boy and girl, a little gray boy and girl, and a little mix boy and girl. “It’s either three sets of twins, or two sets of triplets!” I exclaimed down into the wooden fruit crate that they had been born in. Their little eyes were closed tight and their mews were merely squeaks.

         Rosie loved to watch the blind little kittens stumbling around and fighting over the teats. She giggled as she watched them. I fugured that she must have been about five months old. She could sit up by herself now, and was becoming, in her own way, a very willful baby. If the oatmeal wasn’t cinnamon, there was no way to make her eat it. Rosie liked to drink whole milk andtake two naps a day, 11:00 and 4:00 precisely.

         I had worked at Thrift and Gift enough to support us for a couple of months, so I looked forward to having some peace and quiet. Well, we can all be wise in retrospect! The kittens soon had their eyes open and their enery level pushed to full. They would run headlong into a room, just to ricoche off some object and go hurling back. In two months, Rosie was crawling after them as fast as she could. By that time I knew that more work was necessary-but also nearly impossible. For one thing, there were snowdrifts up around the windows of the cottage. For another, I had developed a terrible December cold. Then there was Rosie, who would no longer be content laying on the floor, gazing at the ever fascinating cieling. But I had to take into consideration the low supply of oatmeal and milk. During my former working days, I had taken home a play pen that someone was giving away. This I took out of its portable box and unfolded. I then proceeded to put all of Rosie’s toys, a rag doll and a rattle that were in the diaper bag, a bottle of milk, and a bowl of oatmeal and spoon inside. Then I plunked the sleeping baby in with her blanket and ran out of the door. The faster I got there, the faster I could get back.

         I worked only a half day for Merrline, earning fifteen dollars. Then I ran around the grocery store, flinging spaghetti, sauce, oatmeal, and milk into the cart. As fast as I could, I paid and ran home. I was immensly relieved to here Rosie’s wails coming from inside the cottage. This relieved me in two ways- one, she was still alive. Two, the cottage still had four standing walls and a roof.

         Rosie was in her playpen, which had somehow gotten turned upside down. The bowl of oatmeal was on her head and dribbling down her face along with the tears and inevitable baby snot. Her toys had a thourough coating of oatmeal themselves, and her blanket was soaked with spilled milk. I ran to plop my groceries down and rescue Rosie.

         I gave her a bath in the big bathtub that sat on claws in the ugly, chilly bathroom. I had moved Miss Emma’s old portable room heater in there, so it wasn’t as bad as it usually was. The good thing about Miss Emma’s house was that she owned her own watermill. That meant that all her power was self generated. It also meant that there was no power when the lake dried up in the summer, but I had never had air conditioning and didn’t miss it.

         Christmas had been a foreign word until I met Miss Emma. She always had a spruce tree and presents-for her family in Oklahoma. She always said that it wasn’t her place to be my only hope. I never understood her.

         I cut some branches off of a spruce tree in the forest behind the cottage and stuck them in a big, sturdy bowl. Miss Emma’s attic was full of surprises. There was more of interest in that crawl space then in the rest of the town put together. I went up while Rosie was taking her four o’ clock nap three days before Christmas. I found ornaments-but also something I needed more. Miss Emma had lived in that cottage her entire life, first with her sweet, widowed mother, and then alone. Her childhood toys and books were in boxes up there. I found several old dolls of all kinds in a box and chose out a cloth one with pink yarn hair. Rosie would only need one present.

         Even the kittens loved christmas. They would weave around my feet while I made gingerbread, and bat the ornaments around with their paws. Rosie played on the floor, knocking the vase tree over periodically. I was amazed that it lasted through christmas.

         After the holidays, I went back to work. But this time it was at the movie theater, selling sodas at the snack bar. Rosie liked to crawl around behind the glass candy case, and I got all the candy I wanted as a perk. Sometimes I would get the bonus of a free movie ticket, which I would use when Rosie was being good.

         Rosie had started to blabber by January. She drooled out “Mlphlee” and “Drglnop” when we went home. At the theater, her favorite words were “Mshnbow” and “Klinger”. She had no name for me, and my nametag was blank. So one night in early February, I got out a book full of names. I flipped through the pages and landed on a name: Robert. Not quite right! Then I found a name- Elkana. A little akward, but very unusual. But it was the meaning that made me decide that it was my name- “God has sent”.

Well, folks, that's it. You successfully reached the end. I'm already regretting posting this. If you made it this far without stabbing your eyes out, kudos to you. Next week, I promise to throwback to something a little heavier on the humiliation and lighter on the depression.

Oh, and in case you were thinking, "Sure, the beginning is pretty depressing and wildly unrealistic, but surely it gets better!" Nope. The story goes on to detail "Elkana's" (oh Lord WHY) discovery of a human trafficking ring that kidnaps Rosie, her introduction to a boy her age whose twin sisters were kidnapped by the same ring, and their attempt to stop the children from being loaded on a plane and sent away to be sold at auction at some undisclosed location. The book abruptly stops in the middle of this confrontation, so one can only assume Elkana's bleak and miserable life was mercifully cut short by the baby-thieves.

Good lord.

And I remind you, this was my fantasy. I sat down and was like, "You know what would be fun?"

I just...

       I'll se you all tomorrow, for a very special 100th post! Stay tuned!