Tinkling Capacity

At the editors request our bloggers have written short stories about their childhoods. Here is Terribly's

I kept a tan plastic bucket of X-Men action figures under my bed, playing with them until my mid-teens. Puberty saw black curled hairs gathering on the carpet, and then clinging to the small men—curling around bulging arms and legs. Finally they would settle into mussed piles in each of the bucket’s corners. By this time Wolverine had lost an arm, Gambit a leg, and all my friends their toys. The plastic men could no longer be involved with social interaction like when I was six; the bucket would be tucked further under the bed for still easy access, but also guarded anonymity.

At times, when I was sure no one would walk in, I would act out what little and imprecise things known about sex using the action figures. The scenes more resembled fish fighting on land then human copulation.

I stopped watching the Saturday morning cartoons of the mutant- powered heroes much earlier. When I did watch—every Saturday morning—it was assumed a mutant power laid within myself. Festering powers, and solving problems, like the prophets of old I learned of on Sunday mornings. It seemed a sure thing, I was after all a child of God (like the song), and I did feel different (red hair and all). I thought about his future powers every day—whether they would resonate from my eyes or nipples, and which world leaders would offer thank yous and medals—and was more than a little disappointed when I discovered my only mutant power was wetting the bed until the age of sixteen.

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