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That title seems extremely suspicious when I put it like that. But in the end, I am a sweet, benevolent angel who could do no true sin... And I'm pretending this is reddit, unfortunately. I'm just awful curious. Stories from childhood, lets do this! Surely you have something interesting to share.

dad's "job"

  My dad was a really scummy guy.

  Not like I exactly think he's a terrible scrub right now or anything (last time I checked he totally is) but it's more like he fits the text book definition of scummy. Like he's been type casted as the sneaky money laundering rat bastard you see in all those contemporary musicals set in the 1920's about worker's rights. You've seen 'em. Like....The Newsies. Or Urinetown. Yeah, that's musical theater for ya. A lot of songs about piss.

  My papa, he was supposed to be working at a paper factory, doing some kind of management thing and making good money. He'd also go on seriously long business trip, and when he got back, my lil' sis and I would decorate the house with paper cutout decorations of various unrecognizable animals. He'd bring back presents-- Normally cheap jewelry-- from really far away places like Thailand and Indonesia. It seemed very awesome back then. Honestly don't know why a well-to-do but otherwised small town paper factory would send a guy on month long trips to Thailand.

  My papa also gambled and drank a lot. Like, a lot. I only bring this up because he was supposedly Muslim, but I guess he just was damn bad at the whole religion thing because he sure liked them slots. And craps. And poker, although he might've been good at poker. He was a charming son of a gun, too. Think Bruno Mars, but with more cigarette smell. Dashing guy.

  Papa's gambling got him into all sorts of trouble, more trouble than you'd think. There was the bank getting antsy. There were family friends getting suspicious. But also? I would be watching TMNT and eating cous cous, or chasing our cats around the house, or tracing the covers of Disney VHS tapes and we'd get a call on the home phone (this is back when home phones were a thing). I'd answer it like a good widdwe boy.

me: "Hellowhoareyou."

mysterious, man: "Hello, is Abdelatif home?"

me: "He's at work right now."

mysterious man: "When he's back, tell him to call this number."

me: "Do you want to talk to my mom?"

mysterious man: "No, that's okay. Just tell your dad when he gets back."

Click.

Obviously, that doesn't sound strange at all. Just a guy, that's all. But the thing was that it would happen several times a week, or a few times a day at some point, various guys asking politely to hear from my dad and sometimes not so politely. My mother didn't know much about it. She was awful busy with her own job, and the pops be out on his own excursions leaving little ol' me and the sis to talk to all the mysterious people that happened upon our number. 

Once, the phone rang while I was watching TMNT with the ol' man. I went to get it, but my dad said to just let it ring. I told him that some guys ask for him a lot. I can't remember his expression, but I just know after that I was not allowed to pick up the phone at all.

All this sounds like unbelievable speculation. Totally suped up, right?

After my parents split up, my dad had lots of girlfriends. Correction: He was more open about his many girls. Every time I'd visit him it seemed he had a new foreign cutie, normally from Indonesia or Thailand, and they always were set with the big bucks. I'm kinda sad about it now. Lots of those girls were very sweet and there they were, dating a bumblefuck like my pops.

My mom let it drop at some point that my dad certainly had a collection of fake identities and names, that he got married to at least one other hot girl in Tasikmalaya and totally had a kid with her, that he stayed out of some place for a while because he got in trouble with a gang for borrowing money.... It's all so juicy. What absolutely incredible news. There's all sorts of whack stuff I'm sure my sneaky rat of a pops has done, and damn do I want to know it all. In fact, not too long ago I spotted him at the mall with this super adorable little boy with a rad as hellfire tiger jean jacket. I can only hope that that kid grows up to be as rad as his leather jacket and not just another face on the hit list of the Lebanese mafia.

ultra violence bad bad kid

I was a pretty violent kid. My sister tells me I was a positively insane megalomaniac with a crazy God complex of sorts, but she probably just says that 'cos I beat her up so much. I beat up my friends, I beat up the neighborhood kids....Heck I even beat up people on accident. I was extremely punchy. I like wrestling, and I was always in the mood for a good fight. Once, I nearly broke a middle school girl's arm during a match because "I don't care if you say stop, you have to tap three times out."

It wasn't like I was super big. In fact I was, I was the tiniest: When walking to school on a windy day, I'd get tugged all over like a plastic bag. I'd been born a month early and I've been skinny as a stick ever since. Teachers worried that I wasn't getting enough to eat at home. Turns out it wasn't neglect making keeping me at a clean 56 pounds, it was just my raging metabolism and my burning urge to bust the kneecaps of everyone within a 3 mile radius.

Oh, the 3rd grade.

Bella Sara cards were the hot shit at the time and basically every girl in class was drooling over the glittery sparkle unicorns with their long, flowing manes (I was excluded from this phenomenon as I was stubbornly anti-horse). But also? THIEVERY. The prettiest of ponies were being plucked from under our innocent child child noses. But I'm not like the rest of 'em. I'm a detective.

So by using my incredible genius, I deduced that that blonde bitch Dakota was in for the beating of his life. I could tell because I'd raided his bag and it was filled to the Jansport zippers with incriminating princess themed horses. I exacted justice. I'm a saint. I graced the classroom with their lost property, face a bit bruised from the fight I'd just incited.

Somehow I never got in trouble. I just didn't look like the kind of kid to make somebody eat dirt. Dakota didn't even hate me afterward, either. 

fat cat skinny cat

Once I had these two black cats. One was skinny (that's Sam) and the other was fat (Oscar!). Very cute, energetic and highly pettable. Perfection, in feline form. The on problem was that my papa was extremely allergic to them.

One fine day, Sam and Oscar disappeared into the void of the woods. I asked my pops where they went.

"Cat went hunting in woods...." He said.

Ya know, some things really flew over my head.

pineapple bastard

My imagination as a child was wild. I'd come up with long-winded, nonsensical stories on the fly, I'd constantly make up complex persona's and outfits for myself based of things I'd admired (Han solo, James Bond, Indiana Jones most definitely), and I never stopped drawing. I'm pretty sure a lot of this is due to my undiagnosed and off-the-rails ADHD. I'm just so *quirky* lol *gwomps u*

I downside to all this is that I'd see things very vividly. Like, actually see my imaginary monsters walking around and psyche myself the fuck out. I don't have schizophrenia, I don't have a lesser demonic figure residing in my mortal form. I just whacked my poor little brain out with insane, sometimes horrifying ideas of things that were most certainly not real. Like the pineapple monster.

The pineapple monster was a positively grotesque amalgamation of unspeakable sin and cucumber. Sick bastard. He had cucumber for legs and arms, he shuffled around with a forever smiling tomato mouth, he would peak around the corner and disappear from sight before I could properly understand what I'd just seen. I'd see him everywhere. He'd follow me. He was a blight upon this Earth and I promised myself that I would exterminate him. I slap the celery scent outta that abomination and one day, I'd walk a free man....

Except for he was just imaginary, so I couldn't exactly do much about it except stop thinking about it. Which I didn't do.

I also couldn't stop thinking about rats. I'd get a chill in the night and I could have sworn that there were definitely rats crawling over my blanket. Terrified, I'd stay up all night trying to hold perfectly still so that I wouldn't upset the monstrous horde of rats making their way across my bedroom. I'd see things-- The moonlight hitting my coat in the open closet, to name one-- And I'd go wild. Like the folds being highlighted by the moon and darkness would look like a face to me. And I'd just stare at it, realizing I was helpless against this incredible power that be. Lots of sleepless nights ogling at tree branches or specs on the ceiling. Really, I had quite the imagination.

That's all I gotta say. I wanna hear really weird or cool stories about y'all as kiddos. I wonder what End was like. Maybe he just was there.....Like, from the beginning.

Every Sunday my family, twelve of us, including grandparents and cousins, went out to eat.  We always went to the same place until my grandma grew sick of it which took several years, and then we'd beat some other place into the ground.

I mostly think about a Greek diner we went to when I was probably between nine and twelve.  The rules for what I could order seemed obscure to me at the time.  A hamburger with french fries was fine.  But I was advised not to order stuffed shells at a Greek diner, which I found arbitrary.  A hot open turkey sandwich planner was acceptable.  The French onion soup was not.  I wanted to go through everything on the menu, but really, I was only allowed about ten things as reasonable choices. 

After dinner, the adults lingered over coffee, I thought, ugh, why are adults so *boring*.  I could not understand why they wanted to sit and talk about things, and I and my cousins got up and ran amok in the diner.  There were mints by the front, those mints with jelly in the middle which I haven't seen much lately anymore.  I wonder if I could even find those if I looked.  At first they had those mints in a dish with a big spoon, and you could get about eight with a greedy spoonful when the cashier wasn't paying attention.  Later they switched to some sort of lame dispenser which would give you maybe two with each raid on it.

Here's the detail that really dates this story.  Then we'd go play with the cigarette machine.  Only those around then can remember how fun it was to pull those spring-loaded pull thingers.  Looking back on it, I bet they made those fun specifically so kids would play with them.  They sprang back with the best ka-chunk.  I looked at all of the cigarette brands and discussed which was the best looking one.  My older cousin had thoughts about Camel.  Marlboro seemed so generic.  There were ads for that everywhere.   Kool sounded cool, but my uncle advised me that Kool wasn't for me, which he never explained and which remained a mystery to me for a long time.

After dinner, not infrequently, I would get to sleep over at my grandparents' house, which was the best.  First we'd go to B. Dalton, which is a bookstore that is now defunct.  I would check out the D&D section and pick out a module.  If my grandmother seemed like she was in a giving mood I would bring back two to her and say "I can't decide between these two" and every so often she'd buy me both.  I don't think she had any idea what she was buying me except that I seemed to like these softcover things with monsters on them.  Satanic panic was not a thing in my household even though I'm a gamer of the late 70s and 80s.  I was dimly aware of it, but it was not ever an issue, which I'm thankful for.

The very very best part of going to my grandparents was that they had technology to play with.  My grandpa was the king of early adopters.  He bought a mainframe in, I want to say, 1977-8, and a personal computer (a TRS-80) in about 1977 *and* a VIC20 in 1980.  And a video camera, a massive one that I could just barely hoist on my shoulder. (mostly I used a tripod).  He not only bought all this stuff to play with, he let me play with it as much as I wanted.  This still boggles my mind.  He liked digital personal organizers, calculators, watches--just all sorts of gadgets.

I sat and wrote programs for those computers for hours, in BASIC, trying to write some sort of RPG.  Then, the rest of the week at school, I wrote my programs on looseleaf, waiting to get back to the computers to painstakingly type in my program, making a billion "syntax errors" and debugging. 

My dad ran the company my grandpa had founded and co-owned, and then my grandpa told my dad he wanted my dad to get a computer at home for, I guess, work stuff?  So then we had a TRS-80 at home.  Frogger, Sea Dragon, *Adventureland*!  And the worst part was now the computer was so close.  But my parents seemed to think I ought to not spend eight hours a day playing games and programming, and my computer time was seriously, seriously limited.

And that, ladies and gentleman, is why I did not become Steve Wozniak.

Ding Dong Ditch and Bitch 

My siblings and I were complete brats and assholes when we were younger...actually still assholes but you get the point.

We livrd in a two story house, then we also had our CHAD basement and an attic that really could have been turned into an apartment if like, a kitchen and a bathroom and been put in there. But we did not have money like that lol

Anyways, my poor, sweet grandmother used to live on the first floor, and we on the second. I remember one day (honestly probably more days than one) the three of us would "sneak" down the stairs and go knock on our grandmothers door. We went down the back hallway and the back door was locked so she always knew it had to be us or my parents.

So we would wait until we heatd "what?" Called out from wherever she happened to be or "oh one minute"

Then laughing like a bunch of idiots we would storm back up the stairs and wait a bit, then repeat. Of course she knew it was us and we would always try to play stupid. 

Now, what was even funnier was the lady who lived down there when we first moved into the house, the old lady who would pay my parents rent.

Now this lady who lived there before my grandmother did was actually kind of a bitch as I remember. But there are instances where I suppose I kinda get it. Dividing our kitchen and living room was, well really just a wall but it had two openings on either side with a closet built into each side.

Being young, and well, children. We would all get up early and sometimes chase each other around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around the thing.

And lmao she would literally take her broom and hit it against her ceiling to try to get us to stop.

We thought it was funny and would start actually stomping around the thing, and of course when my dad found out this all occurred he just thought it was hilarious.

Being young, and well, children. We would all get up early and sometimes chase each other around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around the thing.

This is why I could not wait to move out of an apartment and into my own house.  I can't stand the sound of people walking over me.  But I like the banging on the ceiling with a broom.  That's such a cliche from movies!

Oh I shoulda mentioned it was with the stick end of it

I know right

So glad my dad kicked her out and had my grandma move in lol

When I was younger, I used to jump on the trampoline in my backyard for hours at a time, with nothing but my own imagination to occupy me.  I'd come up with all sorts of things, usually with me as the main character, and usually involving superpowers from whatever show or video game I happened to be interested in at the time.  I didn't even act out what I was imagining, I just kinda thought about it.  Something about the monotony of jumping helped get my brain spinning.  Even to this day, I'll go out there from time to time, though not nearly as often as I did a few years ago.

I've began to notice that I'm not the only person who had these sorts of habits.  My little sister, who's also shown an interest in writing, is constantly telling stories to herself, often while walking in a circle around the living room, over and over, which is what I used to do before I decided the trampoline was better. 

Even Judy Blume did something like this.  She would bounce a ball against the garage door, over and over again, playing using only her own imagination.  (At least, it was something like that.  I'm not completely sure about the details).  The point is, I've began to detect a sort of pattern among storytellers.  It might apply to other creative fields as well, but this is where I've noticed it most.  Stranger still, it seems to always involve some kind of repetitive motion, (Jumping on a trampoline, sitting on a swing, etc).  So my question is, do any of you remember doing something like this when you were younger?  I'd like to know just how common this is...

I can relate. I did a lot of repetitive things. Typically it was something like bouncing a ball against a wall, infuriating my father, catching it, thinking of an epic story, and repeating. I was also a pencil tapper.

Lol! This is great. Thank you for sharing these child hood tales. You need to make a book from them.

I've been reading through all these, and they are quite the delight. Night terrors, beaver insanity, and for some reason roff's brother has a lot of butt related stuff floating around his subconscious.

Sorry, but I can't help but picture Gower's childhood in black and white, like a deleted scene of To Kill A Mockingbird. And Gower is like a tiny little child Atticus Finch. How darling. 

I can probably comment on a few life lessons I have learned:

Background

Have you ever seen that old movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding? Probably not, but it was a movie made about my family. They changed the family from an Italian one with everyone named "Nick" to protect the identities of my Italian family with 7 living relatives named "Joe". To sum up my family we are all loud and eat a lot-- I learned sword play from sharing a banana split with my two sisters: nothing was yours until it made it in your mouth and stealing off another's spoon was encouraged. I was the short foul-tempered one with curly dark hair; I was also the quiet one. These are some of the stories my family would tell you.

Greed

Growing up we did not have cable. Our home-entertainment consisted of the worlds largest collection of Disney VHS tapes at the time--if you can't quote the lesser-known movie The Black Cauldron don't argue this point. However, I did enjoy the wonder that was cable television in the early 2000s: my aunt would often baby-sit my sisters and I, allowing us access to all three stations we cared about (Disney channel, Cartoon Network, and Nickelodeon). This aunt also has the internet--something we were not allowed to use in my house because it clogged the phone lines with dial-up connection. the combination was heaven for a a quiet gamer nerd with anger issues.

There was only one tv that was visible from the computer desk, as laptops were not something everyone has back then, and I would line up my turn on the TV and computer to use both at once. Joy! Excitement! Entertainment! Never was a kid happier than me watching invader zim and playing chips; unfortunately, if you left your seat you lost it. This usually didn't matter since our turn in the computer only lasted a half-hour, but today I forgot to use the bathroom before my turn started.

With my cousin and younger sister greedily eyeing my seat I tried to hold back the urges, like Bill Clinton while in office at the White House. Gritting my teeth I muscled through 10 minutes, 20, 30--then it happened. While my sister complained it was her turn, my aunt gave my unwarranted grace and announced that I could finish my show not knowing that at episode had just started.

Double time! This has never happened before. I thanked god for my extra time with both the TV and computer, but cursed the universe for my small bladder. Eventually I found a solution that allowed me to finish my turn without nagging pain. The whole hour went without incident, until it was finally my sisters turn. That is when she discovered my clever trick, when she sat in the pee-soaked rolling computer chair. Needless to say I lost my computer/TV time and my family has never forgot.

Anger

Ahh anger, my younger self's favorite deadly sin; of course, it was always their fault for making me angry to begin with. Except one time. Yeah, this one time was totally my fault. In fact, I don't know that I have forgiven myself for this one, but hey let's put it out there.

I used to play hockey, you know, the winter sport that Canada is always good at? I was pretty good too--almost as good as an average Canadian. One year in particular I was the best on a pretty bad team. It was a tough year. I played defense and was often paired with a less-stellar partner on the point; my team simply did not play offense due to to lack of talent. Our defense was one of the best in the league--on average we gave up only one goal a game--we also lost almost every game 1-0. 

One day we had a unique chance to upset the best team in the league. They were undefeated, and we actually scored. To sweeten the deal a local new station aired the game on local TV--my mom was proud. In the last five minutes of the game the reigning league champions pressed in an all-out offensive attack. My team only had one chance at weathering the storm--a line consisting of all our best forwards mixed with our best defensive pair. That mean that my defense partner and I were not leaving the ice until the game was over.

One player on the opposing team stood above the others--the undisputed best center in the league that year. He was paired against me--the second pick overall in the draft my league had at the beginning of the year. He took control of the puck and charged down the far side of the ice against the boards. His speed was blinding; he flew by everyone on the ice like they were standing still--except me. Locked in a one on one he lowered his shoulder and looked to overpower the scrawny defenseman. I never backed down from a challenge, and I hated to lose, so I lowered my shoulder and left the game up to a battle of balance and strength.

No one likes a tie, but we were evenly matched. As we collided we tangled together and went spinning out of the play. Standing alone with the puck was my defensive partner--usually relatively dependable in situations such as this--he has no one near him and is in full control of the puck; unfortunately, he is unable to stay on his feet and falls. This results in an uncontested breakaway goal that ties the game. On the resulting face off we win the draw, the puck goes to my defensive partner again, and he falls again. 

caught off guard I can not recover the play and we lose 2-1. Rage bubbles up within me, reaching a climax in the locker room. In front of the coach and everyone I exploded--making sure everyone knew that my defensive partner was the sole reason we lost the game. He left crying. How was I supposed to know his mother had terminal cancer--and subsequently died the next day. My mom showed me the paper two days after and all of the blood drained from my everything; this is when I realized I was a jerk of unprecedented proportions. I spent the rest of the year apologizing and dropping gloves with anyone who looked at my defensive partner funny--but I never can make up for that.

Gluttony

I was going to do all 7 of these, but the last one sort of killed my motivation. Instead I will end on a funny note and be done--mostly to avoid depressing myself and others.

Early in the 2000s one food group stood above the rest for hungry teen boys: a five dollar hot and ready from Little Caesar's. You could afford them on the measly allowance your parents granted and eat an entire pizza with only constipation as a side affect! Those were the days. My friends and I took advantage at an in health level.

We could not drive; after all, none of us were sixteen yet. So the main mode of transportation was the trusty bike. Yes, we could cruise anywhere in suburbia we wanted as long as the street lights were not on yet. one sunny day me and several friends were doing just that--exploring the vast expanse of charted territory we mapped out on map-quest. It wasn't long until hunger struck us like Bear Grylls; not wanting to eat rodent poop, we decided to petal over to little Caesar's.

It was then that we realized we were running out of time to bike back to my house--the starting point of our journey where our parents expected us before nightfall. Not wanting to skip out on pizza we devised a solution: we would use the handle-bars as a table to hold the box and eat on the road. That's right we ate pizza while biking home. It didn't seem strange at the time, and it got us home on time. Our parents were confused as to why we carried home empty pizza boxes...I didn't have the heart to tell them how fat and unsafe I was.

I grew up in a little city called Queretaro in central Mexico (at least it was little when I was growing up, it's quite big now) with my twin sister and my parents. My dad was away most of the time since both of my parents were extremely young (mom was 18 and dad was like 23) when they had us. He was finishing his musical studies in the conservatory while working shifts in whatever work he could find. Therefore most of my time was spent with my mom who was a pretty crazy woman constantly on drugs. She would beat us constantly while shouting in French (she was Canadian) which made for pretty scary experiences, but perhaps the weirdest thing was when she used us to sell drugs around. I'm not really sure why she sold drugs (aside from the money, obviously) or where she got them from but she did and unfortunately, me and my sister acted as mules several times. She'd usually put the stuff in our pockets and tell us to stand somewhere until some dude came and took them out and place the cash instead. I'm not sure it was the best method especially considering we lived in Mexico so selling drugs isn't that uncommon but she was serious about safety I guess.

Anyway, one time she had us do the usual routine and drove us to some random cornfield outside of the city. I noticed she had given us MUCH more of the stuff than other times but didn't think too much of it. Also this time she had us both go at the same time which again, was unusual. She opened her trunk and gave us some other stuff and took the opportunity to empty her trunk of random stuff, throwing trash, empty containers and other random stuff on the ground. Then she told us some dudes would get here in a van but she couldn't be seen so she left and said she'd come back in like an hour. So me and my sister stood there for a while, a little confused perhaps at the unusualness of the whole thing but not really too concerned since we had done this before. Anyway we waited for a while and eventually my sister started rummaging through the shit my mother threw on the ground. Inside a trash bag she found a mostly full bottle of whisky. Now we had never had alcohol before, but being dumb bored kids we obviously though it'd be a good idea so we went for it. Naturally, after just a couple swigs we were pretty much wasted and we started wandering inside the cornfield laughing at random stuff.

Eventually, while trying to demonstrate to my sister that I knew how to start a fire with some branches, booze and a lighter I always carried around I ended up starting a small fire in the cornfield. It certainly didn't help that my sister tried to use the remaining half of the whisky bottle to extinguish it. We panicked and ran away the opposite direction we came in and found our way outside. Amazingly, my mom was parked there, and she naturally wasn't too happy to see us there with a rising column of smoke behind us. The fire grew fast and was quickly consuming the whole cornfield, so after smacking us around a couple of times my mom got us inside the car and drove off complaining about how the guys were gonna be pissed. However, as it turned out, the cops showed up because of the fire and arrested the dudes that were waiting where my mom had left us because they found drugs on their car.

So by getting drunk at age 9 and burning down a cornfield, I helped the police arrest a couple of drug dealers.

That is nuts! On the other hand it is a great backstory for a vigilante super hero! Have you considered fighting crime in tights?

Not sure how much help I'd be, considering that fighting crime in Mexico involves fighting thousands of heavily armed men with tanks and military-grade equipment.

Well just make sure you become a billionaire and built a bat-car first...

So one time when I was in kindergarten this girl was all giggly and wanted birthday spankings even though it wasn't her birthday, so I spanked her. Then she giggled about that so I spanked her some more and I was laughing too. It was funny.

She was Arabic.

So one time when I was in kindergarten, I was running and I just couldn't stop. I ended up running towards the girl's bathroom and some fat ugly girl told me I couldn't go in there but I didn't listen because I was running and just couldn't stop. 

Ran into the bathroom and turned the corner and this little blonde girl was on the toilet and she screamed and laughed. This broke my concentration causing me to yell and immediately turn around and run out of the girl's bathroom laughing. Meanwhile the fat ugly girl had already tatted me out to the teacher who just shook her head saying I knew better than that, but didn't do anything else.

Anyway it was funny and the blonde girl was still cool with me.

She was a twin.

You'll be waiting a long time considering I'm happily an only child.