Yellow Frogs!

via Dear Libby

Ready for a story about my childhood? Excited? Me neither, but it's Monday so what do you have to lose? Some dignity, sure, but just deal with it, ok?

It was maybe 1992, sort of around the time where I was wearing tights underneath my jean shorts and maybe tried to wear eyeliner with disastrous results. I had a friend named Kendyl that was talented and funny and whose mom and sister called me "Piñata". I do not know how that name came to be, but it was awesome. (It's probably because you associate piñatas with partytime, and that's totally what I was like at eleven - super happy fun partytime. And then crying. Lots of crying. Oh man, all that crying!).

So one gorgeous summer day, Kendyl and I decided to draw on the sidewalks with sidewalk chalk. Well, Kendyl did all the drawing and I coloured it in. She's an amazing artist, see? So I would go around colouring in her creations while ladies walked by and complimented me on how good they were, and I was all, "natch", because I read that word in Archie comics a lot.

She lived in a sort of apartment complex that had all these townhouses in an area with all these sidewalk paths going between them so we drew/coloured all over the place. Then we decided it would be funny to draw these yellow frog type gang signs all over the place so people would think there's a new gang in town called Yellow Frogs, with two bad ass members (one of them named Piñata). People would be so confused and terrified and excited by this idea, hey?

But we were foiled by a grumpy landlady who hates fun. She made us adorable little pre-teens wash off the drawings with a hose. Isn't that a sad scene? A hose! It's like we literally washed away our fun and youth into those city drains. But that art nazi couldn't wash away our memories! Those yellow frogs will remain in our hearts and minds forever and ever...memories of a long ago time, a simpler time, but a time filled with strife and sarcasm and endless sidewalks of possibilities. A time of petty struggles and angst-filled youth. A time of dusty boot straps and bloody protests in the street fueled by rage and poverty and tequila... I could go on and on.

No? Ok.