Okay, This is What I Did

© 2000 All Rights Reserved........By Margaret Karmazin

I read "Desperate Confession" by famous co-editor of Desperate Act, Steven Engel, and feel a choking urge to make my own admissions. Suddenly an ostrich egg is stuck in my trachea. The constriction simply has to come up.

The time I babysat when I was maybe thirteen comes to mind. The baby was already asleep and on her way out, the mother showed me where the potato chips were and told me what time she and her husband would return. The baby meant little to me; he was a means to make cash. This is not to say I wouldnšt have picked up the phone and dialed for an ambulance if I heard him choking, but I just wasnšt into googling over infants. I headed out to the kitchen for the chips and whatever else I could find. In a matter of seconds, I saw the tins of Christmas cookies and ate enough of them to sink a whale. Then on the way to the bathroom, I passed a magazine rack and lo and behold there was a Playboy in it. Right out in plain view. Didnšt these people have parents who came to visit? What about church ladies? Naturally, I grabbed the magazines (there were more than one) and consumed them page after shakily turned page. While I was now certain I was going to Hell, I was wildly a throb with sexual energy. So this was what men liked. I had all this stuff under my clothes that they wanted to stare at just like those ladies there who seemed to have no inhibitions (or parents to report to). I donšt think the baby choked to death or anything or I would have heard about it, but I canšt say I paid any attention to him the rest of the evening. When the parents returned, I clutched my money and slipped out the door, sick to my stomach and red faced from four thousand cookies and my depravity.

There was this boy, Eddie, in sixth grade, who harassed me, throwing ice balls at my back, telling me I was fat, making fun of my breasts. One day I swore with my fingers out the back of the school bus. In our social milieu, the index and little finger extended meant something mildly vulgar while the second finger meant what it means everywhere. I used both. There were repercussions. I got called into the office. Once there, I lied and said that Eddie was the one who did it. Because I was an A student and he was a goof-off, they believed me. No matter how much he protested, Eddie got in trouble. At home in my room in the dark of the night, I laughed evilly.

In tenth grade, Eddie still occasionally teased me. This time I sneaked a frogšs leg out of biology lab and slipped it into a kidšs soup as the lunch shifts were changing. I joined the throng in the hall as half the cafeteria crowded en mass to the side Išd been sitting on when the kid screamed, "Therešs a frog leg in my soup!" For some reason I have never understood, Eddie got blamed for it. No one in power ever had any idea that I, Miss Ingratiating-Honor-Student, had anything to do with it. Years later I toss in my bed, thanking God the kid noticed the frogšs leg before he took a bite of his soup. What if hešd gotten formaldehyde in his mouth? Would he have died? Has anyone died I pulled some stupid trick on and I donšt even know about it?

When I was a high school and college student, the general social consensus was that boys had the sense of humor and girls were just pretty receptacles who laughed at their jokes. This was not the true case. Quite a few girls I knew laughed their heads off at their own jokes and enjoyed thinking up insane pranks. Most never actually pulled them off, but they certainly fantasized about it. For industrial arts my sophomore year in college, we had the assignment of building a structure of paper, glue and tape around a raw egg then dropping this package from a second story window. If the egg broke, we got an F on the assignment and if it didnšt, we got an A. No in between. It turned out the prof only used a high ladder. My egg didnšt break so later that evening, it occurred to me that this perfectly good egg was going to waste. Why not walk out on the roof and drop it on someonešs head?

Several girls joined me. We climbed out in our pajamas and dropped the egg, not on anyonešs head, but right between a couple back from a date standing by the door about to kiss. We laughed so hard that I was left hunched against the building giggling out of control and peeing into my clean pjs. Had to retake my bath afterwards but it was worth it. After that, we needed more eggs and now every weekend used at least half a dozen. I have to be honest though - I was the ring leader. A campus cop complained to the housemother about all the eggs rotting on the ground and saw someone in the gloom on the fire escape wearing a "white roller cap". That was me, only it was pale blue. I hid in my bed with the lights off while the housemother shined a flashlight under my door. Never got caught but never dropped an egg again.

One time I did something so bad I canšt even tell you. Youšll just have to imagine what it was. I am confessing to the air over my computer but will not write it down. I was in my thirties when I did it. So there.

Now mostly the only evil things I do are in my head. I can be very wicked in there. I am certain that God knows every thought I have although serial killers and dictators might distract Him temporarily. I have episodes of hating certain people like a relative I know who puts every elsešs picture up in the family except for mine. When I sent her pictures of my husband and me, she just put up the one of him. I picture her six feet under and I am wearing a bright scarlet tunic top at her funeral while stuffing myself with casseroles the neighbors have brought over. Anyone else who riles me up, I imagine them dead too, only some are cremated. Their ashes are thrown into a manhole in the center of a very filthy, polluted, crime ridden city. While I am wearing red.

Most of the time though I am thinking about my spiritual development, worrying about my relationship with Higher Dimensions. I try to be good.

Thanks for listening. I feel a little better now.

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