Crazy Clementine #2

I decided that maybe more candles my room would make me more angst-y. Not having found my "cause" yet, I came to the conclusion that mere rebellious paraphenallia will have to do. Yes, yes CANDLES WILL BE IT. I had spent my three-dollar allowance on two packs of Pixi-Stix at the dollar store - the "Sav-a-Lot" which alerted all incoming patrons to the fact that Only Two Teenagers Allowed In At A Time. Having just turned thirteen, I was finally regarded enough of a menace to the Sav-a-Lot that careful counting of heads would be necessary before I was able to access their peculiar array of off-color lipsticks and packs of "FROM THE OFFICE OF..." pads of paper. But the hundred-count Pixi-Stix were what had taken my entire allowance.

So, I needed to find candles in the house. I went down to the basement and rifled through boxes of old towels and sweatpants - - - and then, near the sewing machine, I found it, my CANDLE OF TEENAGE REBELLION.

A God-damn clownfish, in candle-form.

"This will have to do," I thought to myself - and went in my room and lit it. I sat on my bed and basked in the soft glow of REBELLION - an open flame WITHOUT parental supervision.

My clownfish stared at me with its waxy, bulging eyes.

"No. This will not, in fact, "do."'

Well, no good teenage rebellion is compelte without... ah, yes - A RADIO SHOW. I will be a radio deejay and ramble about how my parents don't understand me and nothing makes sense and just how rebellious I really am. That will be it.

I went to the "Wisconsin Room" (in the Midwest, apparently, wood paneling and an entertainment center evoke feelings of being in Wisconsin). There, I went through my dad's old tapes, trying to find a blank one upon which to record my angst-y radio show.

"This. Will. Be. So. Cool."

I found a clear tape and ran upstairs to my boom box - complete with a built-in-microphone. Angst alone was not able to finance a ham radio - so I would simply make a great tape of my rebellious prowress.

Casting aside my now-passe Rebellious Candle Clownfish - I put my boombox on my tiny desk and rewound to the beginning.

Well, the first days are the hardest days, don't you worry any more,
'cause when life looks like easy street, there's danger at your door.

----WHAT?!?!? Someone had pre-angst-ified my tape! I thought about just recording over whatever was on the tape, but I listened on instead.

Their walls are built of cannonballs,
Their motto is "Don't Tread On Me."

I got to the end of the song. And hit rewind to the beginning.

And again.

And again.

And so I listened to The Grateful Dead, Uncle John's Band for the rest of the night, the next morning, and into the next week. Over and over and over -- letting the song verbalize the mix of hope, fear and excitement that I could not yet at the age of thirteen.