First Published April 5, 2006 ~~~current mood: amused~~
We all remember having childhood heroes and idols. People or imaginary beings who, in our sweet little minds, we just knew we were going to grow up to be.
People have asked Sgt. Snickerdoodle and I what prompted us to get married, Sgt. Snickerdoodle always told them, it’s so he could drive in the carpool lane (since I had two children when I met him) and my answer had always been “for the entertainment.” He has kept me amused for years with his stories and not so normal way of looking at life. I guess this could be considered Chapter Four in the ongoing Sgt. Snickerdoodle Chronicles.
Sgt. Snickerdoodle was an interesting child. His views on life and the things around him didn’t really conform to normalcy until he was about twenty. Even then, calling it normal is a bit of a stretch.
While my ex-husband was growing up, he idolized Spiderman. It seems he passed this on as a genetic trait to our daughter, Jessyca, who at the age of three was obsessed with the Spiderman movie.
This idolatry of his arachnid hero, led to an interesting debacle when he was about 9 years old. Sgt. Snickerdoodle was not too interested in what was going on in the classroom and would constantly go on hour bathroom breaks to see what was going on outside or could be seen wandering around the classroom sniffing other children’s scented erasers during test time.
A couple of years into our relationship, we are laying in bed and he suddenly says, “Missy, did you know that no matter how hard you try, colored paper will NOT make you invisible?” I have been yanked back from my blissful sleepy state to a state of utter confusion. Thoughts running through my mind are “he’s having a stroke!, the man has truly lost his mind this time, what time is it?” This conversation ensued when I realized he was waiting for a reaction from me.
Me: Really?
Sgt. Snickerdoodle: Yeah.
Yes, very intellectual responses. I realized he really wants to talk about this so I asked him to explain.
He tells me that he got bored during class and asked to go to the bathroom. As he was wandering the halls, he decides that he wants to be invisible and go into the girls’ bathroom. He has decided that he will become his hero Spiderman (I didn’t realize Spiderman had invisibility powers) and walk into the girls’ bathroom and just hang out and watch to see what they actually do in there. Somehow this child acquires notebook paper, crayons (red and blue of course) and tape. I have yet to figure out how he found these supplies when he was supposed to be in class but I am afraid to ask. He makes his little makeshift costume, tapes it to himself, and off he goes on his mission. He goes into the bathroom and is disappointed to find it empty, but proceeds to go exploring anyway. It pretty much looked like the boys’ bathroom except they didn’t have the “hanging pee places.” He hears the door open and two giggly girls making their way in. Sgt. Snickerdoodle panics and runs into one of the stalls. He must have made a noise because one of the girls asks who else is in there. He said he thought if he was very quiet and they looked into the stall, they would not know he was there, because he was invisible with his Spiderman attire on. When these girls found Sgt. Snickerdoodle cowering in the stall, one of them yanked him out by his ear and proceeded to drag him to the principal’s office. He still loves Spiderman but I do believe his fervor for this masked man was greatly dampened by this experience.
I think that Sgt. Snickerdoodle probably led a lot of teachers and school administration to early retirement.
Background Images Courtesy of Image by junoteamllc on Freepik & Image by coolvector on Freepik