There was never any doubt...
On my 8th birthday, my mom got me one of those cabbage patch dolls that everyone else loved so much. I went on a hunger strike until she returned it and bought me the microscope set that I had been begging for.
Around the same age, I gave a detailed presentation of how babies are made to a group of boys who didn't believe me. I backed up my thesis with articles from Good Housekeeping and pictures from Playboy.
When I was 10, I was "grounded for life" for taking apart the piano. I did this to prove to my doubting friend that it was not only a stringed instrument, but also a percussive one.
That was also the year that I became a "mathlete".
That was also the year I started copywriting my original music with Library of Congress.
At 12, I hated my step father and quickly learned to take the brakes off of his bike. After his accident, he caught me while I was dismantling the breaks from his car.
When I was 15, I had graduated from high school. My mother said I was too young to go to college and that waiting a year or two at home would be the best thing for me. I promptly packed my bags and left while my parents were at work.
You're so badass I wanna test out your above-mentioned thesis if I was a dude.
* now I carry over 50 stitches on my face (and weirdly enough, nowhere else on my body, and not a single broken bone...).
^
In Grade 5, I made a $5 bet with this boy on the playground that I couldn't jump straight and catch the last of the monkeybars.
I lost. And, subsequently got 10 stitches on my forehead to prove it. Which, I begged the doc to get me a mirror so I could see how stitching is done. Totally cool! And, I got a free popsicle at the end of it for being so 'brave'.
None of that hurt as bad as the gloating of the $5 richer boy.
So......I decided to start pimping my TOTALLY GROSS, DISGUSTING, STUFF FLOWING OUT wound during recess and lunch, for 25 cents a viewing (gauze off). I capitalized on the fact that those who wasted the money would totally hype it up (to not look like an idiot for wasting money), which got me enough customers that by the end of the week, I was triple the amount I lost in the bet.
My operations got shut down, when i didn't let my 5 years old cousin get a free viewing, and he complained to the teachers...which was an awkward call for my parents to receive. To say the least.
* now I carry over 50 stitches on my face (and weirdly enough, nowhere else on my body, and not a single broken bone...).
My older brother used to piss me off so much, so I would spend an inordinate amount of time designing and building traps for him. Favorite ones included wires suspended at random places, so when he would run, he would trip on them and fall face first in a pool of ink. Also enjoyed loosening the screws on his bedframe, and stuffing his mattress with lobster shells.
I also set my closet on fire (and almost the house) trying to find out if the chemical make up of plastic changes when burned (I burned a plastic teapot set).
- Many stories of me making housemade bombs, and seeing how combining fireworks would look.
Ladies, let's just cut to the chase... We can seriously make our own babies and start our own tribe. Come on!!!!
Oh, except that when I got kicked out of home when I was uh, 15 I think or maybe 16, and found that the person who'd said I could live with them (which prompted my lack of caution in standing my ground with parents who had already threatened), rather than go back home and beg, I just went and lived in the woods. Built my own bivouac and lived there for almost a year, very happily TYVM. Passed the time by building contraptions to make the daily grind of finding and cooking food easier. When I was alone that is, since I often wasn't - come on, if you were a teen and had a friend living in the woods, wouldn't you go and visit them at every opportunity to chill and hang out away from parents and the law, and take them burgers and cans of beer? Had a good thing going there...