It was 1986. Ronald Regan was president. The Smurfs were all over the place. I was 6.

I was at Suzan’s (as in who you’re cruizin’ for a bruzin’ from… AKA my big sister) house while my mom and our dad (Suzan’s my paternal half sister and is like.. 30 years older than me) drank coffee on a Saturday morning. This was back in the golden days of Saturday Morning Cartoons, where you could wake up at 6am, get a bowl of sugar cerial, sit down in front of the TV and be babysat for 6 hours by Smurfs, Mon-Chi-Chis and every other sick cartoon that was awesome.

My niece (who is a year and a day older than me) and I were watching The Smurfs and drawing robots and dinosaurs and flowers and fairies etc in the living room. Hopped up on OJ and half a box of Cap’n Crunch, I went and hid behind the couch, took off my pants, folded them and took a blue magic marker to my wiener, jumped out in front of the TV and screamed “I’M A SMURF!!! LA LA LALALALA… LA LALA LA LAAAA (AKA the SMURF SONG)”

This freaked out my niece so much that she couldn’t scream. I then ran into the kitchen to show my parents and sister who didn’t have a sense of humor for that sort of crap. They all took turns beating my 6 year old ass.

The magic marker didn’t come off with regular soap and water, so my mom made me use AJAX. out in the driveway. So the whole world could see.