Bite size memoir is designed to help anyone record some personal memoir in small manageable bites. There’s a prompt every week and some constraints to keep it small (with full details at the bottom of this post). To catch up on how it started, please read here. If you have your own blog and want to participate, please feel free to incorporate links to and from your post to encourage readers to blog hop.
This week’s prompt is Jinks and Japes. (This closed now, but you can read the compilation of responses here)
I’m sure I’d promised something lighter to somebody, after sharing tricky times of School at Seven last week. I can’t find it but no matter. Having set off on my own trail of high jinks, I can’t get these particular stories out of my head, so confessional it is! I’m giggling away as I recall some of these, but also wondering at how wicked I was!
Just incase there are any cultural or age differences in our interpretation of words, here are some definitions encouraging you to remember those naughty, but mostly harmless pranks, when you were still quite young. I’m hoping we’ll come back to more mischief later on.
Fingers crossed you weren’t always at the receiving end..
Jinks: Childish, playful, often noisy and rowdy activities, usually involving mischievous pranks.
Japes: Tricks or practical jokes or even perhaps, gags or shenanigans.
Once again, I’ve tackled it in two ways to illustrate how you could approach it (and cheat by having double helpings.)
10 x “I remember ” statements
I remember being sent to the corner shop for ‘elbow grease’.
I remember learning not to fall for the ‘what’s that over there?!’ question when there was still something tasty left on my plate.
I remember convincing my best friend, marmite sandwiches were chocolate spread, so she would swap.
I remember putting pretend spiders in Mum’s bed and plastic cat-poos on the carpet.
I remember fart powder didn’t work, no matter how much you ate.
I remember pretending to see a tombstone lid move and my friend bursting into tears.
I remember dare, dare, double-dare.
I remember running down long drives and ringing bells.
I remember scrumping apples and belly ache.
I remember jumping barbed-wire fences onto bullocks backs and riding round the field.
150 Words of Prose
It was a small village with a handful of boys and even less girls my age. I climbed or played hide and seek with the boys but got annoyed when things turned football, instead of bare-backing bullocks or scrumping in the orchard, where the doberman sometimes caught us.
I lined them up outside the bullock paddock, near the white kissing gate – promising to show them mine, if they went first. Not sure why, other than I knew I’d get them! It wasn’t even curiosity, except maybe to see some variation on my brother. There was some persuading, but down came the shorts. They were looking at each other to check timing.
I looked so quick, I didn’t see! And faster still, took off through the bullocks, long legs pumping. I knew they couldn’t catch me! Up went the shout and the shorts – I had to lie low for ages!
What do you remember?!
Here’s how you join in:
A REMINDER OF HOW THE BITE-SIZE MEMOIR CHALLENGE WORKS
- Each Friday I’ll suggest a topic by 2pm UK time (BST) via my blog and Twitter (using the hashtag #BiteSizeMemoir – You don’t need to be on Twitter to participate.)
2. The challenge will be to write about the topic using
either
10 x “I remember statements”
or
150 x words (prose, or poem if you want to stretch yourself)
Either will make you pick and choose your words carefully whilst keeping a tight focus for time’s sake. You might want to write more, to keep at home, but please only submit one option within the limits for sharing (i.e. 10 statements or 150 word prose/poem)
3. The Deadline for sharing your ‘Bite’ will be 2pm (BST) the following Thursday. You can share in either of two ways:
a) Post your response in the comments section of the current topic – I will find it and cut and paste to the compilation of responses. (You may not see your comment appear immediately but don’t worry – I will find and share it)
or
b) If you have a blog you can post your response on your own blog with a link back to this post, and then also provide the link to me in the comments section. I will then link your contribution back to your post, in the compilation of responses.
4. It would be great if you felt able to include the year you were born and the country the events took place in – I won’t enforce this but I think it provides a significant context for other readers. As an example look at the compilation for “School at Seven”
5. I will aim to compile responses and share them via another post before the next challenge is issued.
A few rules:
- If you need or want to be anonymous that’s fine – When you post a comment just put ‘Anon’ or a nickname in the name field. It does ask for an email address as part of spam filtering but only I will see it.
- Please keep others anonymous to protect their privacy and dignity – change names or use initials etc.
- If you’ve got an axe to grind, please do it somewhere else.
- If you stumble across this after the deadline, do feel free to contribute and include your blog link in the comments section of the compilation, so others can read it.
August 19, 2014 at 9:41 pm
Decided to come see what Bite Size Memoir #2 is/was and I’m beginning to think most of my responses are going to be heavier responses. I was the brunt of many pranks growing up. Unfortunately I was naive enough to fall for all of them, and sometimes more than once. I will try and put together something for this one.
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May 15, 2014 at 7:29 am
Just in the nick of time: http://carrotranch.com/2014/05/15/bite-size-memoir-no-2/ This is fun, Lisa!
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May 15, 2014 at 9:09 am
Thank you Charli for making time when you’ve been away and clearly busy. I love this atmospheric, happy piece, which reminds me of the very different experiences we each have. You must have had so much fun skiing!
And I love this analogy at the beginning of your post: “For me, exploring memory is like extracting water from a peat bog. It’s saturated, but not easy to pull out clean.”
Excellent!
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May 15, 2014 at 6:08 am
No Substitution Mud Cookie Recipe (Suzanne Canada 1961)
Although hot summer days were the best for mud cookie baking, they often presented another problem. Water was needed to mix with the dirt, and if it had not rained for awhile there were no puddles available to scoop water out of. My Dad had always strictly forbidden me to touch the outside tap.
I remember being faced with the no water predicament one day. I got the idea that we could pee into the bucket. We’d use pee to mix the cookies. My friends agreed this was a brilliant idea. We hid under the back stairs out of view to empty our bladders into the sand pail. Carrying the half filled pail carefully, we proudly headed to the road to mix in the dirt; then bake on the concrete sidewalk.
When our baking was done, the little brother of Rachelle crossed the street, helping himself to a cookie. “Delicious!”
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May 15, 2014 at 8:53 am
Ah, great minds and perhaps a little psychic! A front runner for topic 3 was “sand castles and mud pies” – hurries back to drawing board… Maybe later, I’m sure you’ve been up to more with mud!
Love to imagine you all peeing in secret into a bucket – the things we got up to!
And you let him eat it! – My father was once convinced to eat a rabbit poo because it looked like a current – apparently they’re rather bitter!
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May 15, 2014 at 3:06 am
I posted on my blog. I am the Anti-Prank, I’ve decided. The perpetual wet towel around April Fool’s Day. Can’t stand pranks!!
http://juliejordanscott.typepad.com/julie_unplugged/2014/05/just-call-me-the-anti-prank-.html
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May 15, 2014 at 8:47 am
But I think I understand it – perhaps not a weird child but a sensitive one and this incident is a sober illustration of the unforeseen impact of violating the sanctity of childhood securities. Thank you for sharing this. Perhaps a reminder to us pranksters that there should still be some boundaries!
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May 14, 2014 at 10:32 pm
Simon aged 49 UK
“Have you been pinching biscuits”
“No Dad” he said unconvincingly
“So what’s in your pockets”
“Nothing” the nervous response – unsure how to interpret the glint in his fathers eye
“What happens if I bash your pockets” said the advancing adult – with a mischievous grin, crushing the biscuits with a few quick slaps
“Stop it Dad – don’t”
The reversing child met the sofa at calf height and fell back heavily
CRUNCH
“My glasses you’ve sat on my glasses !!”
“I didn’t mean to ”
“Shelia! Shelia! Look what the little bugger’s done to my glasses”
Oh how we laughed – especially when recalling on his 80th !
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May 15, 2014 at 9:19 am
Ah yes! The accident that must be your fault if you’re already in trouble! Messy pockets though!
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May 14, 2014 at 12:39 am
Not a problem, Lisa.
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May 13, 2014 at 3:10 pm
The Conspiracy
By Paula Moyer
I liked working with “Mack,” my boss, but the office needed a laugh. Then the opportunity came. His birthday.
What would be just the right thing to do? A surprise party seemed cliché. I thought and thought.
I had heard about “gorilla-grams.” A guy comes in a gorilla suit and sings a personalized song for the honoree. The folks in the next office were in. “Shirley” would bring the kids. “Dan” made a dummy appointment. We paid the actor and made a treat list.
The day arrived. Mack went to Dan’s office. The gorilla/actor arrived. The cake and treats appeared. Mack returned, puzzled. “Dan didn’t have much to say,” he started. Why the crowd?
The primate sat at his desk, rubber-stamping Mack’s signature. Then he jumped around, took off his mask, grabbed a ukulele and sang Mack’s song. He laughed. Hard.
“The best birthday ever,” Mack said for years later.
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May 13, 2014 at 8:31 pm
Paula ! Hello and thank you for visiting again AND sharing such a great jape with us, especially after I failed miserably to include you in my round up of School at Seven – all put right now! I can tell you must be a forgiving soul, thank you !
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May 15, 2014 at 7:28 am
That’s a terrific joke!
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May 13, 2014 at 10:49 am
The reluctant memoirist has posted her jape: http://annegoodwin.weebly.com/1/post/2014/05/the-stories-we-choose-high-jinks-and-travel-horrors.html
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May 13, 2014 at 8:33 pm
This is such a great post as well as the ‘jape’! I didn’t imagine you as a naughty girl! What a bad influence the rest were..
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May 15, 2014 at 7:27 am
Creative problem-solving, combining the flash in a dual presentation, Anne!
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May 13, 2014 at 9:09 am
Ah, Irene – I did wonder whether ‘jinks and japes’ was a bit old fashioned and perhaps highbrow ‘British English’ – I watch too many hysterical, historical comedies like BlackAdder !
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May 12, 2014 at 2:06 pm
An Urge to Confess: Jinks and Japes
Tracey Scott-Townsend, UK, now 51 years old…
http://traceyscotttownsend.com/2014/05/09/jinks-and-japes/
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May 12, 2014 at 2:16 pm
So you should ! Wicked girl! 😄 thanks for a good laugh though..!
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May 12, 2014 at 3:52 pm
Give me a penance to do, somebody!
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May 12, 2014 at 12:23 pm
Another telling tempt, Lisa. Here’s my little effort
Jinks and Japes – Geoff Le Pard (UK) now 57
I’ve killed my nana. He made me. She’s going to die. He says they aren’t real spiders and, anyway, they were dead so it doesn’t count. He says it was a joke but I know she was meant to see them in her tea. Nana hates spiders; she always screams when she sees one. Mum does her tutting thing and goes down the garden. She goes down the garden a lot when Nana comes to stay.
Nana just swallowed them whole and had a garibaldi biscuit after. Garibaldi’s have squashed flies in them; Mum says. That’s how I know Nana’ll die. It’s in the song Uncle sings me.
‘There was an old lady who swallowed a spider that wriggled and tiggled and squiggled inside her. She swallowed the spider to catch the fly. I don’t know why she swallowed the fly; perhaps she’ll die.’
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May 12, 2014 at 12:47 pm
Oh! Thank you Geoff, for making me laugh so and reminding me of squashed-fly biscuits!
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May 12, 2014 at 2:07 pm
Haha, I remember that song so well. Also, ‘I’m going out to eat worms’…
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May 15, 2014 at 7:21 am
Oh, no! The old, spiders-in-Nana’s-tea jape gone bad! I’m laughing and the dogs are looking at me in a strange way! Okay–but you have to explain the biscuits…
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May 12, 2014 at 7:08 am
Mayhem and math class: http://littlemissgonewild.blogspot.com/2014/05/bite-size-memoir-2-jinks-and-japes.html
Thanks for another great prompt Lisa!
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May 12, 2014 at 12:59 pm
All the teacher’s fault ! Thanks Ruby !
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May 10, 2014 at 12:41 am
Bet you did see –
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May 10, 2014 at 4:01 am
Don’t remember!
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