| ||||||||
|
| Making
Do PAGE
TWO: I thought briefly of replacing Rainbow with our family's Standard Poodle, "Pansy." (I was only four years old when I christened her for the flower, which her dark brown coat resembled. I would for the next 20 years be reduced to screeching the disclaimer "I DIDN'T KNOW 'PANSY' MEANT GAY!") The problem was, Pansy was epileptic and, despite medication, would occasionally have a seizure, or "fits" as we called them. Her body would freeze, every muscle taut, and her eyes seemed to double in size, rolling back as she would topple over and begin to shake violently. The protocol we followed was to grab the nearest bean bag chair (this being the '70s, we had a lot of them), throw it on top of her, and then sit on top of the bean bag and stroke her head, thus comforting her and keeping her from thrashing around and hurting herself. I became so used to this, I'd forget to clue in a visitor why, seemingly out of the blue, I was suddenly possessed with the need to crush my dog with tacky furniture. Despite the notoriety an epileptic poodle may have brought (I even entertained the idea of triggering a fit, then passing it off as a "Hypnotic Trance!!" -- "See the Amazing Pansy foam at the mouth!!"), I decided this Freak Show approach was beneath Pansy's dignity, and the excitement of the County Fair would be too stressful for her. Rainbow, my placid, celery-chomping guinea pig, did not win any ribbons (this was before "self-esteem" became a buzzword and every child got an award simply for breathing), my exhibit closed without fanfare, and Rainbow returned to obscurity. This saddened me -- primarily for Rainbow's sake. Not only was he a perfectly good pet, he was something of a lifesaver, providing soft comfort and stability in a chaotic, unpredictable household. But how could I have conveyed that to the masses? Shortly after the County Fair, I hung up my four-leaf clover as my father finally relented, and I was finally allowed to join the Girl Scouts! I lasted six months. Once the allure of the uniform's jaunty cap and Beauty Queen-ish sash wore off, I began to chafe under the copious rules and "Goody Two Shoe" expectations of the GSA. As lame as 4-H had been, at least Kim Somebody's mom was pretty hands-off whereas my Girl Scout Troup Leader micro-managed every project, having no appreciation for creativity or "out of the box" thinking. This was a woman who never colored outside the lines, and I lost all initiative under her invasive, perfectly manicured thumb. I started to falsify records so that I could earn merit badges at a competitive rate, I coerced a fellow Scout to make me a Cliff Notes version of the tedious manual, and I often faked illness in order to avoid the boring nature hikes and rainy camp-outs. Most disheartening, I found that I hated selling Girl Scout cookies to strangers as it felt a lot like begging. Instead, I bought the whole bunch myself, with my meager allowance, and then resold them to my visiting relatives at Christmas. I waited until after the much anticipated Roller Skate! Night (even a militant troop leader couldn't suck the fun out of that -- with my new Farrah hair style and a glass tube of Bonnie Belle Strawberry Lip Potion dangling from my neck, I was "Doin' the Locomotion" with the best of 'em!), and then I formally withdrew from the Girl Scouts of America. My uniform became a costume used to portray miscellaneous Army personnel in the Super 8 films my friend Steven produced (always starring the one kid in the neighborhood with a BB gun because, well -- he had the BB gun), and I had enough cookies to provide craft services for an eternity. Around that same time, a neighbor lady cleared out her attic. As a result, my sister and I inherited a bunch of Barbie dolls and a stack of "Archie and Betty" comic books. The novelty of owning these vacant, blue-eyed Babes and their pink, plastic paraphernalia wore off fairly quickly, as did the fascination with the dimwitted Archie bunch. The booty was eventually donated to the Salvation Army along with my father's Nehru jacket, my mother's hand-knitted ponchos, and the politically correct "Sunshine Family", by now stripped of their heads and limbs, more closely resembling the truncated, disjointed family we were soon to become.
PAGE 1 2
|
For
my 4-H competitive project, I decided to show Hector, AKA "Rainbow",
a male guinea pig with a reddish coat, "russets" (swirley hair rather
than smooth), and the ability to leap over a chopstick placed between the bars
in his cage. My booth, sandwiched between a dolorous-eyed cow and a gleaming auburn
horse, contained a lone card table upon which I placed Rainbow in his metal cage.
I tried to dress up the surroundings with hand made posters sporting magic-marker
headings like "Fun Facts about Guinea Pigs," and "Rainbow through
the Ages" (upon which I pasted photos of Rainbow as a baby and so forth --
each photo looking pretty much identical to the one preceding it). Still I had
to admit the overall effect of my booth, dwarfed as it was by hulking, pedigreed
neighbors, was fairly unimpressive. 
