Correspondence With My 7 Year Old Self.
July 15, 2010,
Dear 7 Year Old Self,
There are so many things that I wish I could tell you little dude. However, this magical portal into the past is only available for 15 minutes or until I get distracted by something else, which can be pretty much anything since I seem to have adult onset ADD. Which is entirely your fault for eating too much sugar and watching too many cartoons and probably also from the lead based paint on your walls and your asbestos ceiling and whatever organ melting chemicals are in that Smurf Berry Crunch cereal that you love. Just ignore all that, I was just making wild assumptions, I don’t want you to become a hypochondriac or anything. Seriously though, don’t hide stuff in that ceiling, I’m pretty sure it’s asbestos.
- Start applying yourself in school. You are not going to play professional baseball, football or basketball. Or tennis or golf or street hockey. There’s not even a professional street hockey league, dumb ass. Then, even after you mature (a little) and age (poorly), don’t delude yourself into believing that you are going to play professional pool, or darts or that bar bowling machine game. If you can do it in a bar, it’s not a ‘sport’ anyway. You are not going to play professional poker, spades, pinochle or dominoes. Lastly, you are not going to become a professional trivia knower, so just do the school thing.
- Don’t give Snowball a haircut and shave this year. Snowball will be angry and ugly and mom will be pissed and ground you.
- Take the Willie Stargell rookie card and the Roberto Clemente card and hide them in the ceiling of your bedroom. Do it right now. Don’t worry about the asbestos, this’ll be worth it.
Please save this card. Please!
- Please don’t ever start smoking or drinking. It’s not nearly as glamorous as your dad, who is long gone by now, but will be back when you are 13, mostly so he can borrow money off your mom, makes it out to be.
- Be extremely careful when you are playing the Fart Bubble game in the bathtub. You don’t know it right now, but it is, in fact, possible to lose the Fart Bubble game.
- Back the hell up away from the TV. You’re killing your eyes. And don’t listen to music so loud when you’re a teenager either. I can’t hear for shit now. I’m almost blind and deaf thanks to you.
- Do not date a girl named Caroline. Especially do not have sex with any Carolines.
- Don’t be in any hurry to grow up. Just live in the moment and cherish every second!
July 25th 1980
Dear guy,
Hi. So the future has lots of super stuff then. Do you like the Steelers? Do you drive a airplane car? I’ll try to do what you say a lot.
School sucks but I don’t have to try too much. Jeff Hagmier is a buttlicker and doesn’t even take showers! Everybody knows that. If I don’t be a football player that’s ok because I’m going to be a CHIP’s. That’s a California Highway Policer and I’m going to drive a bike and live in California unless they all sunk in the ocean because it’ll be Sandreas’ fault. That’s what Mrs. Edmonds said.
Snowball is white and has long, itchy hair. She’s pretty ok.
No because Timmy Quinlin said I could have his old Green Machine, 53 gummy fish and a baseball signed by John Candelaria for them so I said ok. Timmy and Teon spent the night last weekend and we stayed up till real late. Roberto Clemente is dead in a plane so he’s dead.
I think Mom smokes but it’s stupid and drinking is for bastard shiterhead. You didn’t think I know swearing did you! Mom wouldn’t let bastard shiterhead back in the house she told me.
I love fart bubbles. They kill or save my GI Joes. You have a lots of toys I bet.
You swored. If you’re blind and deaf do you have plastic eyes? What is your car?
Gross! I wouldn’t kiss a girl. I skated with one and held her hand so she didn’t fall down and I skate backwards too. I’m good at rollers and also skateboarding. DO you have a flying skateboard? How about for surfing?
No, I can’t wait to be a teenager because then everything will be different and it’ll all be so cool. Is high school scary? When I’m a teenager I’m going to move to the California unless it’s under the ocean and be a CHIP’s or a shortstop. I hope it’s not Sandreas’ fault and it’s all gone though.
These is the CHIP'S!
Will you please buy me a Blondie album and a Chipmunks Christmas Songs one? You can put regular records on fast and they all sound like The Chipmunks voices do. Teon showed me. I also want a Charlie’s Angels tee shirt, but the one for Charlie not the girls. You could send me a flying skateboard and other crazy stuff that I can’t even think of. I’ll love it. You should come back here and marry my mom. Does Fonzie be president or does Russia kill everybody?
Ok. Please write back and send me a camera too.
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Ah Scott, you’ve done it again. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Do both, that’s usually how I roll.
Thanks Karen!!
CHARM and WHIMSY alert! Killer line, ‘you should come back here and marry my mom’ …. Awwwww. Oedipal, but awwwww.
I’ve been working on my charm and whimsicalality, so thanks!
My 7 y.o.s. wasn’t being purposely oedipal, he…. or, I, just really wanted to marry off my mom at that age so I’d ask every man I met.
Thanks Mitzi!!
One of your best – oh, hell, they’re all good, but wouldn’t it be great to send MYSELF a letter, only I’d like it to be when I was 14 and THE BIGGEST DORK EVER.
I’d tell myself to let go of the dreams of Farrah Fawcett hair, ’cause it was just never going to happen. I’d also warn myself about the Freshman 10 – which became the five-year-college-plan 25! STAY AWAY FROM ARBY’S drive-through after 12 AM – and I don’t care HOW bad you’ve got the munchies from all the weed you’ve been smoking. Do Not, under any circumstance, wear lavender. You’ve never looked good in purple, and you never will. Please, please, I’m begging you, skip the pom-poms on your roller skates. The Captain and Tenille are NOT real music. Invest in WalMart.
I’d love to have known you when we were around that age. You would have been a good, dorky influence on me and I would have realized that all the hot girls grow up to be scientists and whatnot. As it was, by the time I was 14, I either wanted to be a gangster and replace John Gotti or a Columbian drug dealer and replace Scarface. I had bad influences.
If only we’d known each other then, who knows what my life might look like now…
Thanks Dessert Rat!!
It’s never too late to be a dorky influence.
That is so true. I can’t wait to meet you. On the for real!
It’ll be GREAT! OCD Dorks of the World meeting for the first time. Oh, the Fun! We could sort paper clips and alphabetize the spices! I’m giddy!
More like we’d make each other paper clip and rubber band jewelry and roll around naked in it until we were hospitalized.
We’re going to have so much fucking fun!!
Oh, that does sound like fun – painful but fun! I’d give it a nine on the “ouch-o-meter.” [she writes as she mentally takes note of just how many rubber bands and paper clips and WHAT COLOR she's gonna need...]
Hundreds, thousands maybe. I just had a thought though; the plasticy, colored ones are softer!
Oh, so true! They have that nice coating, and they come in so many fantastic colors and PRINTS! Paper Clip Handcuffs!
NOW, you’re speaking my language!
Love it!
To my 13-year-old self:
- Stop bitching so much. You don’t have any real problems. You’ve got both parents and even if they don’t seem to like each other much, you’re still getting something out of having them in your life. I mean, take a look at Scott: in order for him to have both parents he’d have to bridge time, space and morality just so he could be his own dad.
And he’d do it, too. That’s amazing.
Truly, insanely great post, Scott. It left me very nearly wordless.
(P.S. 13-yr-old: when people start telling you that you have writing talent, try not to sit on that talent for the next 15-20 years. Otherwise, you’re just going to end up blogging or something.)
Even though we don’t have any real problems at that age (not like the people in less fortunate countries like Sudan and Iraq and such) they certainly seem real enough, life and liberty threatening even. If only we could see the big picture, or part of it at least, at that age.
I was hoping (and trying desperately) to have my mom marry a rich guy so we could get the hell out of Sharpsburg. She actually dated a few but after spending the night with her and having me come at them with a baseball bat at six in the morning, they never called her back. Weird. She must have sucked at sex.
I never knew I had any talent at writing until 5 years ago. I god damn wish I would have.
Thanks CLT!!
Only thing I would tell my 7 year old self is to buy Microsoft and Apple.
Then take all the earnings and bet on Buster Douglas to beat Tyson.
Thanks Bearman!!
It would be cool to be a CHIPs dude.
And I miss my Ozzie Smith rookie card. I threw it out with all the rest of my “junk” one year.
Great post dude!
Ozzie Smith! So you can actually appreciate the kind of remorse that I feel right now. Maybe not as acutely, but you still feel it. I hope you got a lot of gummy worms for them.
I still have the Candelaria ball though.
Thanks Jay!!
You nailed the 7 year old letter. Kids are so stream-of-consciousness aren’t they?
Imagine how much more f’ed up you’d be if you were your own dad.
Hilarious post, but somehow sweet at the same time.
And there are way too many Scott Oglesby’s on FB. I can’t find you. I’m easy to find. I’m the only Amy Severson with a wolf and a large, bald, gotee’d guy in her profile pic. I hope.
I remember this one, but you added a reply, so cool!realistic, too. you are the hero bloggy-man
I may have written a point or two before but this is new, as far as I know. Then again, I’m not always all here.
Thanks Lisa!!
I’m like Oh no, I’ve gone nuts. It was a different post that I remember, but it was you at 7, so I’m only half insane.
http://zodiblog.wordpress.com/2010/08/22/more-letters/
Damn Lisa, you remember me better than I remember myself. And I thought that was only true of my bartenders and opium den gate keepers. I didn’t even remember that short bit.
Thanks Lisa!!
I still am all stream of consciousness to this day. They are my favorite posts to write because that’s the way that my mind naturally works. I start having problems and confusion when I have to do research and stick to task.
Thanks Amy!!
Oh that was wonderful! I would tell my 12 yr old self to not smoke and to pick a career
I wish I’d known how much I love to write and nurtured that talent, now that it’s been mentioned. And/or studied photography.
Thanks Reb!!
“Does Fonzie be president”
I love the 7 yr old ebonics speak.
Brilliant!
Who would have thunk that I’d grown up to be wrote?
I still can’t believe Fonzie didn’t go ‘Reagan.’
Thanks Candice!!
I’d tell my 7 year-old self that I need a more realistic career goal than being a Princess. Turns out there are prerequisites for that field. One of them being that you likely need to have someone other than a truck-driver and a bank employee for parents.
That reminds me that I wanted to do a post about ‘if everyone’s childhood dreams came true.’ I love the idea of nothing but firemen, astronauts, princesses and veterinarians running the world.
Thanks Rev D!!
HOLY SHIT….it’s like you were a fly in the wall of my childhood bedroom…minus the gender references, it could have been me.
I would have wanted to be one of Charlies Angels though, instead of a CHIP.
Maybe we’re really soul mates or long lost siblings?
You really did grow up to be a Charlie’s Angel though. I mean, look at you!
Thanks Candy!!
I wanna know what ever happened to my Jetson’s jet backpack for flying around.
But I REALLY wanna know what the 7 y/o Scott is planing to do with that camera. If he is planning what I think, it better be a polaroid cause the film developing people at the local drug store really don’t like that shit.
I thought for sure that we’d have jetpacks and flying cars and pills that we could take so we didn’t have to eat our vegetables by now. Who knew that you could make broccoli taste so good just by adding some butter and cheese!
I think I wanted to take pictures of random Trans Ams. Seriously.
Thanks David!!
Oh Scott I don’t know what goes on in that head of yours but I bet it’s scary!
It can be scary, like a bad trip, but I’ve learned how to talk myself down.
Thanks Nursemyra!!
Excuse my ignorance but does one use bath foam while playing the Fart Bubbles game, or would that be redundant?
I don’t think I used bubbles too often. They would have obscured any accidents….
But I do love me a bubble bath now.
Thanks Gazingatnavels!!
What “are” the risks of fart bombs in the tub.
Please, do tell. Should I be extra happy to still be alive today?
Sometimes you can accidentally push out more than just air. A surprise submarine attack which might cause your moms to go ape shit mad.
Thanks Micky!!
Sugar causes adult ADD? I’m screwed.
“If you can do it in a bar, it’s not a ‘sport’ anyway.” I knew Flip Cup was a sport!
Lead paint is probably worse though.
I love flip cup!
Thanks Thoughtsappear!!
Hi,
I think one of my comments hit the spam box, because I left a link to the post I got confused over. I just remembered you wrote a post about you as a 7 year old, but it was entirely different. Your earlier 7 year-old post was all the way back in August and was so great I remembered it, but this one was great too.
Ok, I fixed it. I wonder why it didn’t ‘take’ at first? This is just like that time I tried to give myself a liver transplant. Only with less dead hobos.
Thanks Lisa!!
Yes, best just give the school thing ago.
lol.
That’s usually good advice.
Thanks Artswebshow!!
Maybe you should have written the letter to the 14-year-old version of you. The 7-year-old one doesn’t seem to quite grasp some of these concepts.
Still, I’m with him on the fart bubbles. Those are fun. No two ways about it.
Knowing me that’ll be an upcoming post as well.
The fart bubbles, while fun, can also be dangerous. The key is in the effort: don’t try too hard.
Thanks Dr. Ken!!
And who’s Caroline? She must be the bitch from hell in your history.
She wasn’t from hell, more like a purgatory-ish, tripy zone filled with too much of everything. Nice girl at heart, bad idea.
Thanks Dr. Ken!!
Phew, I thought for a minute you were going to tell me Eric Estrada had died…sheez, then I’d have to take his posters off my wall. Hey, it worked for Katie Holmes
Not that I know of but I guess it’s possible. He’s got to be in his 70’s. Are you telling me that Katie Holmes killed Tom Cruise with a CHIP’s poster?
Thanks Loon!!
How’d you learn so much about ho’in anyway?
My childhood was spent largely on the streets of Pittsburgh. The game, it’s all in the game.
Thanks Lynn!
ooh.. Sorry Scott, I think I posted this comment on the wrong post. Guess I came to your blog and got lost in the moment.
I’ll take it wherever I can get it!
Thanks Lynn!!