Heather
LAMPE
The young are the restless
A child’s laughter is sweetest in death’s face
“Come on, sweetie, take your
hand out of the blender. We don’t
play with things that frappe.”
Dear God, why do people
procreate? Please strike me down if I
ever volunteer to
baby-sit for
anyone again.
“Please
don’t eat the
plants... OK/
don’t eat the dirt
either... Take the
Miracle-Gro out
of your nose.
diep away irom
the fern.”
When I said I would baby-sit, I
only had intentions of making a little
cash and giving a friend an evening
of peace. But I had a kind of under
standing and realization this weekend
that I haven’t had since I found out
that Bert and Ernie were just felt
bags with hair and that the World
Wrestling Federation was all a sham.
I felt a closeness with God that I
haven’t had in all my 22 years. I
realized that it is utterly amazing that
I lived through childhood. I believe it
is a considerable achievement that
any of us live past age 12.
I spent the whole evening keeping
this 2-year-old out of the hands of
death. Every move she made, she
was flirting with mortality. Though
her mother had attempted to make
her home child-proof and safe from
danger, this little darling pried out
«
Throughout childhood we are
basically squatty unpaidstuntpeople
with runny noses.”
the plastic caps that go into the wall
sockets and tried to give Barbie and
Ken some free electrolysis.
I couldn’t imagine how her
parents ever got anything done. I had
to follow this child around for six
hours to make sure she didn’t get into
any perilous situations. She decided
that she wanted to spend the evening
spinning herself around and falling
down. I had to be referee between
her and the furniture to see that she
didn’t fall on a comer and crack her
head open.
I believe that we must all be bom
without a sense of danger. It takes
our parents and guardians, who
managed to live through their
childhoods, to rescue us and teach us
not to venture into traffic and not to
put dimes in our nasal passages.
Throughout childhood we are
basically squatty, unpaidstuntpeople
with runny noses. Because it isn’t
just toddlers who can’t sense
hazardous conditions, for some kids
it takes all 18 years to learn not to
stick a fork in a toaster.
My younger brothers are prime
examples. They shouldn’t really be
alive today. Whether it was eating a
whole bottle of children’s aspirin or
sticking their tongues to frozen
metal, they both have cheated the
afterlife more than once.
The older of the two had a
fascination with fireworks and
gunpowder.
On the Fourth of July, he scoffed
at sparklers and smoke bombs. He
had to get the largest firecrackers
legally available to children under 5
feet tall. And if mom and dad
wouldn’t allow that, then he would
befriend the neighbor child whose
parents were liberal enough to drive
him over the Nebraska-Missouri
border for M-80s.
And he wasn’t content with just
lighting and throwing them. He likec
to see how long he could hold them
before they would blow up. He also
liked to dig through the garbage and
find aluminum cans to blow up. Our
family pets have shrapnel scars to
prove it.
My younger brother teased death
by playing with the older brother. In
the 13 years since he was bom, he
has suffered hundreds of bruises, a
concussion, a broken arm and a
hernia at the hands of my older
brother. He was also shot at close
range with a pump-action BB gun by
my older brother. All in fun, of
course, all in fun.
I shouldn’t make my brothers the
pawns of this column though. I was
equally as stupid as a child. When I
was in grade school, I tried to jump
off the roof of our utility shed. I was
in love with “The Fall Guy’s” Lee
Major and was practicing for the
show.
When I was in fourth grade, I
wanted to see what the fascination
was with shaving one’s legs and I
ended up with two thighs full of
Band-Aids and a near slash of the
large artery in my upper leg.
I’d like to end this column with a
disclaimer for my parents and with
some of their words of wisdom.
Despite what I have told you, my
parents tried and for the most part
succeeded in keeping us from harm.
Unfortunately, you can’t be with a
child every moment so you must
instill them with knowledge arid
common sense. So in the words of
my beloved mother... don’t run with
scissors.
Lampe is a senior news-editorial
and English major and a Daily
Nebraskan columnist.
Brent
POPE
Born to blunder
The Pope men are graced with clumsiness
Since the dawn of the human race,
three things in life have been certain:
death, taxes, and the fact that men in
the Pope family are accident prone.
My grandpa is, my dad is, and I am.
...in , To prove
mat wnat i luce to
call “Jack Trippei
Disease” is
passed on from
previous genera
tions, I must tell
you that my dad
once flipped an
entire steak into
his lap at a fancy
restaurant, prompting the Olympic
diving judges at the next table to give
him 9.8’s straight across the board.
(They had to deduct two-tenths for
the tiny steak sauce splash.)
To give you an idea of my r«
extensive history of clumsy acci
dents, here are some of the really
dumb ones in chronological order:
Age 2:1 was sitting in a high chair
in my Grandma Pope’s kitchen. I
tried to stand up and fell out of the
high chair headfirst. The damage: 16
stitches. On the good side, this
episode was later the inspiration for a
B movie called “The Boy Who
thought He Could Fly and Cracked
His Head Open.”
Age 5: My dad and I were fishing
at Lake Jacomo in Missouri. I ask mj
dad where I should spray the Off to
keep the mosquitoes away. “All
over,” he said. So I sprayed it in my
eyes. Incidentally, this was also the
same night that my dad got a fishing
hook caught in his scalp. At first
M
At first he didn’t know the hook was
caught in his head. He actually yelled,
‘Wow, I’ve got a bite, and it’s a big one!’
Then he reeled himself in.”
he didn’t know the hook was caught
in his head. He actually yelled,
“Wow, I’ve got a bite, and it’s a big
one!” Then he reeled himself in.
Age 9:1 was climbing a tree. At
the height of about 8 feet, I lost my
grip and slid all the way down, using
my chest as a brake. When I went
inside my house to get some sympa
thy, my parents said, “We’d like to
help you out, but we don’t have a
Band-Aid that big.”
Age 13:1 was chasing my dog
through the backyard. He jumped
over the fence. I mistakenly thought I
could also do this, but I caught my
foot on the top of the fence. On the
way down, 1 saw a stake sticking out
of die ground heading right for the
part of my anatomy that doesn’t want
to land on ANYTHING hard, let
alone a stake. Luckily, it missed that
part of my body. A couple inches to
the right, and I would have under
stood that sad look on my dog's face
that time we brought him back home
from the vet.
Age 17:1 was working at the
family farm, moving hay with a
pitchfork. I went for another scoop oi
hay and stuck (me prong of the
pitchfork directly into my foot. By an
amazing coincidence, my dad once
stuck an ax directly into his foot
while chopping wood, also at the age
of 17. (How cute—generational
deja vu.)
Age 21:1 was in Spain during my
Navy years. Somehow I got sand in
my eye and rubbed it so much that I
scratched my cornea. I ended up
wearing a patch on my eye for a
week, earning new nicknames like
“Cabbage Patch Pope,” “Blackbeard
the One-Eyed Pirate” and “The
Dumb-Ass That Sanded Part of His
Eyeball OffWith His Own Hand.”
Age 22: i was eating at the
Bonanza in south Lincoln. I scooped
up a baked potato with a large spoon
and attempted to get it all the way to
my plate—a good 2 feet away.
Sadly, this unfortunate tater tumbled
off of the spoon toward a large vat of
nacho cheese. I reached out with my
skunk-like reflexes, but it was too
late. 1 thought about trying to retrieve
it, but after envisioning several
messy possibilities, I decided to cut
my losses and walk casually back to
my table. (This is going to seem
pretty unbelievable, but a few
minutes later my roommate walked
over with his plate and right in the
middle was—you guessed it—a
baked potato smothered with nacho
cheese. I didn’t dare ask if he had
covered it with cheese himself.)
' And finally, just last month, I was
going through the drive-thru at
McDonald’s. I drove up to the first
window as instructed. Then, after
paying, I drove off WITHOUT
stopping at the second window to
pick up my food. By the time I
figured out what I had done, I had
screwed up the orders of the next
eight carloads of people. And here’s
worst thing about this ordeal: I DID
IT TWICE! IN ONE MONTH!
At this point you may be wonder
ing “What’s the point?” Well here it
is. There are people who are just as
clumsy if not clumsier than I am.
And we’re not doing these things on
purpose, it's hereditary. It’s in that
one little gene whose motto is “Hey,
why stand up when it’s so easy to fall
down? Why hold onto something
when it’s so easy to drop it?”
So be careful, people. There are a
lot of clumsy folks out there just
waiting to accidentally trip and shove
you into a large vat of nacho cheese.
(And you don’t even like nachos.)
Pope is a senior broadcasting
major and a Daily Nebraskan
columnist
