<p>I was sharing a story with my girls tonight and thought that all of us parents must have stories we tell about something that happened growing up that seemed SUCH a big deal at the time, but in retrospect, in the grand scheme of things wasn’t that big a deal, but it STILL irks us</p>
<p>This is mine</p>
<p>When I was 5 (40 years ago), I had a great barbie doll collection- the shoes, the house, the clothes, the fake food, dresses i got from laundry bottles, (sent in the coupon) I had Ken, the whole lot</p>
<p>Anyway, my neighbor “friend” (who was a big 8) played with me all the time, well with my Barbies…</p>
<p>one time, she asked if she could take them to play with, and I trying to be nice and poplular, let her (she was kind of mean)</p>
<p>Anyway, I came home from school on the next day, and she had MOVED!!! With all my barbie stuff</p>
<p>City, when my sister and I were little this girl from our neighborhood babysat us. I couldn’t stand her, and I was always telling my parents how I didn’t like her and stuff like that. I used to get money if I helped out with things… like I’d wash my parents and grandparents cars and get 2.50 each… (we didn’t get allowance or have chores because it was just our responsibility to do that stuff in the first place) … anyway, i had saved up a bunch of money (I had about 60 dollars in my wallet… from all of my car washes all summer… and i know i had 60 because i even counted it and was so excited with having all that extra spending money for my trip) and we were getting ready to go on a vacation to Virginia for a few days. The girl decided she wanted to “borrow” my wallet to buy ME a present. (With my own money, none the less). So she took it home with her… without me knowing it. So that night i’m looking everywhere for my money and I can’t find it, and I’m like telling my parents how i’m sure she swiped my wallet… and my mom decided to go with me to the girls house to see if it was there, and we got there and she wasn’t home, but her mom went and searched in her room and there was my wallet… with 20 bucks inside. I kept saying how I had more than that and that the girl owed me 40 bucks… then the girl came home and accused me of trying to steal money from her because she insisted I only had 20 dollars when I knew i had 60. she told us that she "borrowed my wallet with 20 dollars in it to buy me a cool 20 dollar thing for myself since i never got out to go shopping and spend my money… and that I asked her to do it. basically she was going to swipe my 40 bucks, and buy me some crappy 20 dollar thing…) we basically fired her that night and her mom gave me 40 dollars out of her wallet to make up for it… </p>
<p>To this day, I want to track her down and tell her exactly what I think of her stealing from kids…</p>
<p>See, this stuff stays with us, and man, some girls can be mean</p>
<p>boys just hit each other and its over, we girls, can be sneaky…</p>
<p>I still remember my Barbie Ball Gown she stole…I had to save laundry coupons for like 3 months, and waited in the mail until it came, and the shoes, little blue pumps…double ratz</p>
<p>Haha citygirlsmom sounds like an incredibly cool parent. I hope her daughters are hot if I ever ge to meet them…jk…well actually dead serious.;)</p>
<p>citygirls, i remember clipping the points off the back of kool-aid when i was little and mailing them in for prizes. did you guys do that? it used to be SO exciting… so I know what you mean :)</p>
<p>I finally got over this only 1 or 2 yrs ago. I had the original barbies, perfect condition, but no boxes. I needed some money during college and found out Barbies were valuable. I called my mom very excited. The story changes but either she gave them or my cousins borrowed them. I was livid, mom called her sister but she wouldn’t give them back.</p>
<p>My mother had a problem with giving away her children’s stuff. My brother still brings up the time he went to pack for a camping trip at age 18 and found that my mother had given away both of his sleeping bags to someone she felt sorry for.</p>
<p>When I was a young teenager I used to mow our neighbors yard as well as our own - I think I got $5 for each one. One day our neighbor said I had not mowed it when I said I would. I didn’t think I had said I would do it on a certain date, just that I would do it in the near future. My father was in the backyard and overheard the conversation and immediately took the neighbors side. I remember being terribly embarrassed and angry at my father that he didn’t back me up. I didn’t know how to save face at that age and think I quit mowing the neighbors lawn and got back at my Dad my spreading dried dandelion seeds all over our lawn because I knew that would bother him. So, thirty years later I’m probably the only one of the three of us that even remember this incident.</p>
<p>This will sound ridiculous, but, when I was 3-4-5, I used to stand on the back steps of my grandmother’s house and try to practice flying. There were lots of birds around, especially in the spring, and, I couldn’t get why I couldn’t fly too, no matter how hard I tried. I would stand on the uppermost step possible, jump, and flap my arms as hard as possible, over and over. </p>
<p>Obviously, I totally get why humans cannot fly, but, to this day I remember trying so hard, so often, and never getting off the ground. I still believe somewhere deep inside I should have at least made some small progress towards being airborne. </p>
<p>Funny thing, no one - not my grandparents or anyone else - ever told me I couldn’t or encouraged me to give up trying.</p>
<p>My daughter’s Barbie box was “lost” on a move to Costa Rica in the mid 90s. Expatriates there later told me there was a one-box-tax on any major move.</p>
<p>My mother gave MY Barbie stuff away, and I wish she hadn’t. There was the cool Dream House, and all the clothes my grandmother had made, including a billowy white dress made from an old parachute!</p>
<p>CGM, was your “friend” a Republican? That might explain things.
Great story.
I guess I had a good childhood because I can’t come-up with anything.</p>
<p>I remember working all day after a blizzard in Michigan shoveling my neighbor’s driveway - taking great pride in getting every bit of snow off from it - and it was very long and the snow was very deep. That night my neighbor came over and paid me … he gave me a whole dollar!!! Certainly a dollar was worth more then than now, but for the amount of work that I did, it was peanuts. I’m certain that he was a Democrat! ;)</p>
<p>latetoschool, I tried to fly, too! Superman and Peter Pan sure influenced us.</p>
<p>My “still irks me” story: I was an amateur roller skater and competed in a dance competition at an out-of-town meet. My partner and I placed 2nd, but later that evening while eating dinner at a local restaurant, a judge located us and took away our 2nd place ribbon and gave us 3rd. Apparently the 3rd place skaters balked and we just sat back and let it happen (or our parents did).</p>
<p>funding father, the same thing happened to me. But what I remember is a company had a slogan contest, and a bunch of us friends were sitting on a friend’s front porch listening to the radio, and we were all tossing out ideas for a slogan. I came up with one, and the girl whose porch we were on sent mine in, and won a bicycle! When I confronted her, she said it was her porch, and her idea to send it in, so tough! She had the info, none of the rest of us did. She already had a bike, my parents couldn’t afford one for me, but none of that mattered. She never even let me ride it.</p>
stealing from kids…</p>