Biography: Dads Make Bad Babysitters

Write a story prompted by a personal photo. What words do you need to tell the whole story, beyond what we can see in the photo?

Left to Right: My brother, Andrew (Age 7) and Sean Danilko (Age 4)
Summer 2009 (Personal Photo)

The summer between 4th and 5th grade, my family went camping with the Danilko's. My brother and I were 7 and 10 respectively. Melanie and Derek had a son, Sean, who was 4 at the time. Melanie also had an older son, Tom, who was about 13. The moms decided to run into town to grab some food for that night (I think we were out of stuff for s'mores). While the ladies were gone, the dads decided it would be funny to "babysit" the kids by duct taping us all to the trees around our campsite while they drank beers by the fire. Tom, being a teenager, had a pocket knife and simply cut himself free. I was, and still am, always cold, so I just slipped out of the hoodie I had on. The two younger boys were, unfortunately, a little more stuck without adult assistance. We all had a good laugh and even got some chuckles from other campers who wandered by. The moms were less amused when they got back, but it was pretty fun!

This was also the same trip where Derek caught a HUGE fish at the campground lake... himself.

(Not graphic, I promise)

Whatcha got there, Derek?
(Personal Photo)

Showing off his newest piercing
(Personal Photo)

Unfortunately, it was a barbed hook, so a quick trip to the local emergency room was required to remove it. The rest of the trip went off without any other incidents though!

Author's Note:

I feel like I should say that all of us kiddos were 100% on board with the tree thing and weren't restrained against our will. Tom and I only made a run for it when it took the moms like 20 minutes longer than expected to return. The only one harmed during this trip was Derek, and it was his own fault with no permanent damage.

I've been doing my darndest to insert a little humor into this crazy world through these biographical writing assignments. I hope it's been working! I know these trips down memory lane have been a huge relief for me. There's just something about that happy nostalgic feeling. I hope everyone's doing okay! Hang in there! We're almost done!

Biography: Pronunciation Matters

Share an event in your life when you later found out you had been wrong about something.

Author's Note: I received a comment on one of my previous Bio Writing posts to "Please write more biography-style stories! We need some good humor in times like these :')" (Thanks Christine! Glad you enjoyed it!). I agree that some humor is very much needed in these stressful times. So, without further ado, one of the most embarrassing moments of my life that my family still harasses me over nearly a decade later. Hopefully it will give at least a few of you a chuckle. If not, I just published this to the internet, so no takesies-backsies. 

Setting: Cancun, Mexico. Circa 2011(ish). On a family vacation.
Age: 12 (I think?)

When I was in 7th grade, my family took a vacation to Cancun, Mexico. I can't remember the name of the resort we were at for the life of me, but I do know it was all-inclusive with a swim-up bar in the pool that did non-alcoholic mudslides and daiquiris for the kiddos. I was in heaven! One of the outings we went on was to an adventure park called Xplor. I went zip lining, despite being terrified of heights, and later floated on a lazy river style ride through beautiful caverns. One of the families in our "group" happened to have a daughter my age and was staying at the same hotel as us! We hung out for most of our time at the park and even had dinner with them the next night!

Now for the embarrassing part: While at the restaurant, my little brother (about nine years old at the time) decided to try ordering for himself.

Lil' Bro: "Daddy, I want this!"

Dad: "That's fine, just tell the waitress when she gets here."

Me: "What are you getting?" *has him point to what he's ordering*

My eyes get wide, and I, in my infinite 12-year-old wisdom, blurt out, "Wait, isn't that underwear? You're gonna let him order underwear???"

That, ladies and gentleman, was the day that four adults had to struggle through tear-inducing laughter to explain the difference between linguine and lingerie to me. In my defense, the words do look quite similar! 

But wait! There's more! Flash forward a year or so to a vacation in Outer Banks, NC with another family that is now our neighbors. They have, of course, heard the linguine story by now. I believe it actually got brought up while we were eating that night, so it was fresh on everyone's mind. We're in the Dirty Dick's Crab Shack gift shop after dinner and my dad pulls some souvenir panties off the rack, holds them up, and goes, "Hey Jess, you want some linguine?"

Haha. Very funny. Mrs. Donna is losing it on the other side of the small store, so dad decides to launch them at her like a rubberband. What no one knew until after she caught them? On the front of this G-string was a cartoon shrimp with the words "Peel Me and Eat Me." On a pair of underwear. Yeah. Nice one, dad.

I remembered the name of the resort! Azul Sensatori!
via Flickr

Biography: My Neighbor, Mr. John

Tell a story about a neighbor, either someone who is your neighbor now, or someone who lived in your neighborhood in the past.

8015 Admiralty Place, Frederick MD 21701. That's not my address anymore, but feel free to pull it up on google maps for some context if you want. If you drop into street view, the truck in the driveway is actually the one I got to bring out to OU this year! My family moved here when I was two years old and my mom was about ready to burst with my younger brother. We moved to the house we're in now in October of 2012. Our next door neighbors for most of that time was an elderly couple with grandsons around my brother's age. Mr. John was the sweetest man with a bit of a mischievous streak. He gave me guitar lessons when I decided I wanted to play in third grade, but also pulled out his "potato gun" on a regular basis over the summers.

This "potato gun" was a couple pieces of pvc pipe hooked up to an air compressor that all the kids on the street loved. There's just something about launching a potato 60 yards that drives 8 year olds crazy! One of the most memorable adventure with him actually didn't involve him at all.

For Halloween one year (somewhere around 2008) we were over at a family friend's house to celebrate. My father thought it would be a brilliant idea to buy way too much dry ice to play with. Aside from putting it in the bottom of the pumpkin to create fog, one of the popular things to do at the time was to drop a piece in the bottom of a plastic water bottle with a little bit of warm water, screw on the top, throw it, and wait. No one else? Yeah, I kinda figured. My family is... interesting. I would to note, before we go further, that this all happened in the middle of a bunch of farmland and no one was ever in danger. Well, except for the dumbass (drunk) adults who were choosing to participate. I was like 9, I didn't really have much influence.

Anyways, there's a group of like four families all taking turns letting the dads rig this up and try to blow their fingers off. We kids just thought it was the coolest thing because it made a loud boom.

My family got back really late that night, just like every night we went over to the Danilko's, and woke up to a newspaper article taped to our screen door. Mr. John had stopped by early that morning with the front page of the paper. The headliner? Frederick residents arrested for dry ice "bomb making". We still laugh about it all the time. Mr. John and Mrs. Diana have since moved to Georgia to be closer to their kids, but I miss them dearly and hope they're doing well.

Author's Note: I promise I tried to find the article, but the newspaper it was published in went under a few years ago. There are lots of stories I could tell about my childhood home, but when I saw the neighbor prompt this is the one that immediately popped into my head. I'll leave you all with a picture of their Yorkie I pulled off of facebook:

The Henry's Yorkie, her name is Libby (via Facebook)

Biography: Bicycle 16 Responding

There's quite a bit you can't do at age 16, but oh so much you can. Oddly enough, in the state of Maryland you can become a certified Emergency Medical Technician. Now I can't say that I'd recommend it looking back, but it sure was a lot of fun! So at the ripe old age of sixteen and a half, I was riding in the back of ambulances taking patients to the local hospital. Well... sometimes. You see, the training course to become an EMT is intense. 165 classroom hours over the course of 5 months, plus ride along time. All while I was in high school. Because of this crazy schedule, I was unable to complete my drivers ed course until much later than normal. So what's a girl to do when the fire siren goes off for a vehicle accident right down the street from her house? I had just gotten my license at this point, but it didn't matter. My mom's car was in the garage getting the oil changed and my dad was still at work. I hadn't been driving long enough at that point to warrant my family getting a third vehicle yet. So I did what any sane (ish) person would do, I grabbed my little brother's bike. I rode as fast as I could to the firehouse six blocks down the street, left the bike in the engine bay, grabbed my bunker gear (which weighed about as much as I did), and walked the last four blocks to the scene of the accident fully suited up. In the middle of July. My dad still makes fun of me for it on occasion, but I'm just proud I managed to make it there without passing out!

via Wikimedia Commons

Author's Note: I don't know why this was the first story that popped into my head when I decided to do this assignment, but here we are. It's 3am and I'm running on nothing but Monster and adrenaline at this point. I decided to not question it and just started typing. I think it's an amusing story and I hope someone else enjoys it too!