At age 13, sitting at the dinner table late one afternoon with my older sibling explaining socialism and subsuquently starting my journey to become a communist

Quite young, probably 7 or so. On a little gravel shore by a lake, my family were fishing, but I was too busy setting sticks as ladders up against a flat rockface, recreating the opening scene with the roman invasion of Astrix & Obelix in Britain

Crete, having walked way too far with my grandma, I was probably 9 or so, drinking out of an ice-filled bottle in probably 30C heat, getting ready to turn around and go back to the hotel

A specific angle from my first childhood bed, room only lit up by the glow of my lamp, I see my closet and a box of toys, probably one of my first core memories

Being 6, walking through the dimly lit gem vault at the natural history museum on a quiet day and wanting to curl up on the carpet and sleep in there

Shoplifting 3-packs of Bic lighters, then throwing them at a concrete barrier to make them explode. Broad daylight, alone.

This girl I met online when I was like 14. We were in the same forums and kinda developed crushes on each other. Eventually we both realized we’d probably never meet IRL, and we both had more feasible options in town. We opted instead to help each other land the ones we wanted. Which, in the end, wound up being just a case of picking each other’s brains about how teenage boys and girls are.

I think she wound up dating her local crush for a bit. Mine turned out to be gay.

Mid September, 2001. I asked my dad if “everyone is sad about 9/11” includes the cows in the field. He looked at me and said yes, even the cows are sad.

Regularly played soccer in the parking lot with a few friends and one of their dads. The dad would play us 3v1 and say that if we won, he’d buy us each a pack of Pokemon cards. He let us win, but we didn’t know. He offered us triple or nothing. We took the bet, and he hustled us and told us not to be greedy and press our luck.

Autumn of 1969, sending encrypted letters to the Chronicle.

I remember some kids stopped bullying me in third grade because they learned I could draw dinosaurs pretty well

Opening a new savings account after a family move (back then, people encouraged children to save their pocket money to teach the value of thrift)

I mentioned to the banker were I had had an account in the old city, and he told me that they were in a lot of trouble. It was part of the Savings and Loan fiasco of the late 1980s.

getting facts-and-logic’ed into admitting to myself that I was not straight by a like, very overbearing junior or senior, as a freshman in hs.

I just like, wouldn’t hypothetically rule out dating my friend or something and I guess lack of visceral disgust was an immediate tell. She was kind enough to not blab about it. I asked if my friend felt the same way eventually, after much prodding from her. It was a no. I think I cried, which was very rare back then. And I told nobody

I am queer as fuck it turns out so ig she kinda nailed it. I often wonder what happened to her, we only really talked for like a few months freshman year but it was a very formative time.

I saw my mother naked at 7yo so I started crying and pretended to have fainted (because I saw that in a cartoon), then my grandpa told me I will see more naked women in the future while laughing

At an arcade for a friend’s birthday, my dad told me and my friend that if anyone made fun of friend’s brother’s condition, we could beat the shit out of them and he wouldn’t tell anyone.

I took a sip of my own piss because the doctor had me pee in a cup during an appointment. I had no concept of urinalysis and just assumed he was thirsty, leaving me with the question “well does it taste good?”

I think I was four at the time.

Renting video games and movies at the local version of Blockbuster, and then watching all those stores shut down as internet access became widespread. I still remember the store, crappy red carpet included. They even tried Blu Ray rentals, including a Blu Ray player or PS3 rental, as a last ditch effort to stay in business, but went bust anyways.

Also remember riding my bicycle up the steepest hill in history as a five year old. Went back to that hill as an adult decades later. It actually barely was a hill, I was just a weak and small five year old.

Me and my friends throwing a giant dildo on top of the roof my friends house, we never retrieved it