Remember When.....

Here's a game I've stolen from Milliner's Dream. Your task, dear readers, is to post entirely fake memories of spending time with me. Nothing too disturbing, please. Hannah is offering a prize, but I'm not sure I feel up to that. If I get enough responses, maybe I'll have my family judge and I'll send out an authentic St. Louis post card to the winner. (Do you feel motivated yet?)

On Hannah's web site, I posted about my imaginary tattoo. I've had the imaginary tattoo ever since I taught 12th grade English and made the grumbling seniors memorize the opening lines of the Canterbury Tales in Middle English. One day my friend Tracy, a history teacher, and I thought it would be fun to play with the minds of our freshmen, so we started rumors about each other. We didn't lie, but we did misdirect: "Ask Ms. X about her Harley," or "Ask Ms. Thompson about her tattoo." When two squealing freshman girls came up to me before class and said, "Ms. X says you have a tattoo!" I touched my stomach and said, "I do not! And if I did, it certainly wouldn't be the prologue to the Canterbury Tales." Thus began a spirited week or two, before we eventually came clean (though I refused to show anyone my navel).

Here's my post to Hannah:

Remember the time you talked me into getting a tattoo? For ages, I had wanted the opening lines of the Canterbury Tales tattooed in a spiral around my navel, but I kept second-guessing myself. As we were having coffee at Starbucks one day, you said, "You know you want to. I dare you." You jumped up and pushed me towards the door.

At the tattoo parlor, you calmed my nerves as I waited for my turn. When the bald man with his little tuft of goatee started with the W in "Whan" several inches above my navel, I shrieked a little bit, but you helped me calm down and take deep breaths. (Those doula skills come in handy!)

You kept me entertained with birthing stories for a while, although the man kept interrupting to ask me how to spell the words. When he had finished, I looked down at the beautiful blue spiral around my navel and smiled. "Thank you, Hannah," I said. Then I recited the opening lines of the prologue for you and the tatoo man, and you both applauded when I finished.

I'll never forget that day.

Now you try it. Have fun!