Random Memories

Evil

i have a younger brother. growing up, he and i were partners in crime. we used to mix the chemicals in household cleaners and other items to see which would fizzle, sizzle, change colors, eat through cardboard. we'd then apply heat, sometimes cooking the concoction on the stovetop, but most often, we just throw lit matches into the brew. once, we burned a plate-sized patch of the rug. my dad fumed over it. but he never bought a new rug, so for years, we just covered up the burned area.

for about eight years, we lived on the 2nd floor of a two-family house. our living room faced Northern Boulevard, which was a five-lane street, two going in each direction and one turning lane. our house (well, we rented it, so it wasn't technically ours) was on the corner. when cars came to a stop at the traffic light, they were right below our living room window. i dont remember exactly how we developed this idea, but it was pure genius: we made shaving cream grenades out of Kleenex and shaving cream. Squirt a child-fist-sized lump of shaving cream into a sheet of Kleenex and pinch the ends together. we'd make a bunch of these and set them below the window. we'd watch the cars on Northern Boulevard stop at the red light. and just as the light turned green and the cars started their acceleration, we'd lob a shaving cream grenade onto the street. when we'd hit a car (which was often!), it would already be moving forward, so there was nothing the driver could do... except keep driving. we were geniuses who never got due credit. those were great times. my dad never caught on that we used his shaving cream to make these grenades, thanks to the fact that he had (and still has) this penchant for buying things in bulk. so we'd basically exhaust and entire can of shaving cream at a time and he never noticed when one or two can disappeared.

one summer, my brother and i perfected how to make rubberband guns out rubber bands and chopsticks. this must have been why i ended up going to an engineering college. mid way through the summer, we had a robust gun design that included a working trigger mechanism. this rubber band guns were powered by rubber bands (and held together by rubber bands too), but it didnt shoot rubber bands. no! it shot paper "V"s. you did NOT want to get hit with one of these V's because they hurt like a motherfucker. if you're like my sister and welt up easily, then you'd see little red V imprints on your skin.

i'm glad we came up with the rubber band guns because they were so much sophisticated than what we used the previous summer, which was slingshots fashioned from metal clothes hangers. for bullets, we used chick peas. those things are hard as rock. you can buy a pound of that stuff for 79 cents. in retrospect, i'm glad we never shot anyone's eye out because that was certainly a possibility. but we didnt realize it back then. there was one time when we were on a bus and landed a perfect bulls-eye on this mexican guy's bare belly. he had been sitting on his front stoop, shirtless, trying to beat the heat.