sticky

Just a disclaimer here, this is just a story. There is no moral at the end, just a funny memory from a simpler time.

One day my cousin and I went out across the park behind her tract and over to a new housing tract, which was not yet completed. She lived far enough away that we didn't get to see each other too often because she lived in an unsavory area that my parents visited begrudgingly, when her family wouldn't or couldn't come to see us. I didn't really pay attention to these details at the time, because all we cared about was ditching our brothers and parents and going off to play and have fun.

We went into the model homes of the newly developing areas and pretended they were ours. This was in the infancy of my awareness of a place called the "Inland Empire," which I would grow to avoid at all costs. At this point in time, all I knew was that these houses were nice. They were fully furnished with exotic couches and large totem poles placed conspicuously about for no reason. No totem poles graced my childhood home. We cruised around in the luxurious models and checked out every detail. We were disappointed to find there was no food in the refrigerator and we contemplated bringing our own, so we could cook fantastic dinners for the parties we would throw in our lavish abode.

When people would come into the house to look at the models, we would hide under beds, inside the cabinets and behind large items, hoping to god that the people didn't think to look there and ruin our charade. Occasionally we would be found or jump out and scare the shit out of the poor, unsuspecting intruders, after which we would run out laughing and hide so as not to be reported to our parents.

Sometimes, the models were rudely locked and secured, so there was no way to get in and have our fun. In these times of misfortune, we would simply adapt and play outside the models in the landscaped yards with the fancy patio furniture. There was one day however, when we came upon a bunch of work supplies. The yard of the house had not yet been completed and there was no one anywhere in sight to claim the trove of work supplies which had been abandoned by their owners. There were buckets with all sorts of random substances inside, a couple of random tools, paint cans, a hose, some bags of concrete and then a bucket off to the side. It seemed to have a spotlight on it. Some nails were on the ground around it, so we were careful, but then we discovered that the contents were a strange, rubbery compound of some sort. It was kind of a yellowy color, didn't have a pungent smell and looked as if it could be made into a huge, fun, rubber ball.

My cousin, in her curious excitement, thrust her arm into the bucket and pulled out a handful of our mystery toy. When she pulled her hand out, she had a handful and then some of what turned out to be the stickiest substance either of us had ever come across. What fun. She moved it back and forth between both hands, trying to construct some sort of object from it, as if it were silly putty. But the more she played, the stickier it got and suddenly we were both overtaken by a sense of panic. I, stupidly, tried to save her by pulling the goop out of her hands in order to ditch it in one of the buckets. But of course, it not only became stuck to my hands, but didn't leave hers either. We were in our own sticky version of the blob. I imagined the goop eating it's way up my arms, choking me out and then taking over my whole body, leaving only my bones for my unsuspecting parents to come upon when they finally realized that we were gone.

In our panic, we began to run. I'm not really sure why running seemed like a good idea, but we took off. We ran like hell toward home, stopping occasionally to wrestle just a little bit more of the goop onto an unsuspecting sapling. As we approached her street, however, our fear was compounded by the fact that the last words we heard when we left were "don't go over to the models." Now the evidence was inseparably adhered to us. We were so toast. As we came down the street, we frantically strategized how we could get this shit off of our hands without being found out. We grabbed leaves off of bushes and stuck them to our hands before we stuck them in our pockets. Insurance, you know.

We spent the next 40 minutes in the bathroom messing with every kind of soap and chemical we could get our hands on, trying frantically to get it off. As it worked out, we both came out of the bathroom with red, chapped hands and neither of us got the sticky completely off. I spent the entire hour and fifteen minute car ride home with my hands in my pockets, not even bothering to defend against the horde of little brothers. This was the ultimate price to pay, I had decided.

I ended up sneaking into the garage and pouring gasoline on my hands and then scrubbing them with a short-bristled wire brush. This, of course, was a red flag (literally) and I was found out. Phone calls were exchanged almost instantly and suddenly there I was, getting yelled at, while I stood with my nose in the corner. My cousin and I never spoke of the incident again, once our parents got a hold of us. I decided then and there, that I would never force my children to be stuffed into the house at family outings with no activities to keep them occupied. Turns out, this was only the beginning of our antics and though we were restricted to the house at family gatherings from then on, it didn't stop us from drinking in Yosemite, while the families sat around the campfire...

Yes, I know....I was such a bad kid.