An Embarassing Moment from Childhood

I've been wanting Damien and I to record stories about our lives. We want these stories for two reasons:

1. a way for our posterity to remember us
2. something to look back on and remember all the funny times in our lives

We began this evening by writing about an embarrassing moment from childhood. Here is my story.

In Spokane, one of our neighbors was the Maughan family. They had seven children, including a daughter a year younger than me. Our backyards faced each other and there used to be a slat missing in the fence so we could slide back and forth between yards to play.

The Maughans always had things going on at their house and a pool in their backyard. Bean and I accepted every opportunity to play and swim because they were few and far between. The Maughan children were not allowed to play unless their rooms were clean and chores done, which they never were.

One day I was over there swimming, don’t remember if Bean was there or not, and we were taking turns jumping into the pool. They had this old red-painted wooden picnic table and we slid it close to the edge of the pool so we could jump off of it into the deep end. We had taken a couple of turns already and everything had been fine. I got up to jump off again and this time I jumped and the table collapsed underneath me.

Thankfully, I was able to get enough momentum and make it into the pool, but the table was not so lucky. It had had enough and finally the legs gave out. I felt embarrassed about it falling on my turn and the Maughans gave me a bad time about it, only making it worse.

Looking back, the table was quite old and it could have happened to any one of us. That table had been left out in the weather for years and it was just a matter of time before it gave out. It’s too bad that it had to happen on my turn though.

I'll post Damien's next.