Anything can happen if you use your imagination...

I am horrible at time management. Really horrible. I've known that I'm leaving tomorrow morning (Thursday) and not coming back until Monday (Labor Day) and what did I do? I put off packing until 11:00 tonight. Ugh. It's done though. And now I should go to bed. But instead I will tell you about the make believe games I played as a child.

I have 6 brothers and sisters who made for great playmates. However the games that stick out most in my mind involved the four oldest of us. Brandon, Kaley, Brittany and me. Brittany and I are 5 years apart so the four of us are very close in age. I realized today that all of our games were based on either a TV show or a movie. Isn't that nice.

1. The Independence Day Game. When I was in 2nd or 3rd grade we went through a stage where every day we'd pull out the couch bed in the living room and watch a movie. It was usually Independence Day, though I don't know why. Then we made up a game where one person sat in the middle of the bed and the other people (the aliens) would get under the bed and beat on the bottom of the bed with our feet (which was probably not good for the bed now that I think about it). The beating would hopefully make the person bounce around on top and therefore put them within range for one of the aliens to grab them from underneath.

2. Power Rangers. This was around the same time as the first game. I was always Kimberly, the pink ranger. Brandon was always Jason, the red ranger and the leader. Kaley was always Billy, the blue ranger (who, incidentally, was a boy...). Brittany always wanted to be Kimberly, but we'd tell her she either had to be Trini, the yellow ranger (who, coincidentally, was Asian), or she could be the monster that we had to fight. Most of the time she'd give in and be Trini, but sometimes she'd just get mad and say she wasn't playing. She'd go to another corner of the yard to play by herself and we'd just pretend she was the monster anyway and attack her. We jumped around, kicked at each other, and leaped off the swingset. Every time we'd hit the ground we knew to roll about 10 feet because that's what they did on the show.

3. Street Kids. This came from us watching Free Willy every day. And this was when I was probably in 5th grade. Maybe 6th. There wasn't much to this game. We'd just get empty backpacks and put crackers and stuff in them, sling them over one shoulder, and ride our bikes around. We'd always pretend we stole a cake, then we'd put pretend ketchup on it, then the cops would come and we'd have to scram. And someone always pretended to step in the cake as we ran away.

4. Orphanage. My favorite. This came from watching Annie. The land we lived on at the time was surrounded by 5 or six rows of pine trees. We'd get in there and rake the pine straw in such a way that we created pathways and rooms with it.That was our orphanage. We each had our own room. Every time we played, we'd have a new kid (usually Kaley), the cop that brings the new kid (who would double as another orphan - Brittany), the seen-it-all-knows-it-all kid who's been there forever (Brandon), the lady who runs the orphanage (me), and the drunken cook (also me). Oh yes, I would make their food and accidentally spill alcohol into it. I don't know where I got that from.

Sounds like fun, huh?