DIARY: Tantrums of Childhood

Hangout

Memphis Tennessee, the summer of 1990. I was 5 years old, and my best friend was this little black girl in my apartment complex. Her parents invited me to her birthday party at McDonalds. We all lived in a very low-income housing/projects type of place, so this was basically the height of excess, and I was hardcore excited.

So they round up all of us kids and take us in a van to the local McD's. The party was pretty pimp, cake and stuff, and we were all playing in the little inside playground there.

Long story short, I ultimately exit from the playground, and... no one was there. The little girl's parents f**king forgot me, packed everyone up and left me there.

I didn't realize it at the time, being distracted by food and seemingly awesome covered slides. I was just like, "Whoa, this is longest part ever!" The staff didn't even say anything or notice something was off about an unattended kid just hanging around.

Nine hours later (my parents weren't exactly winning any awareness awards themselves), my mom and dad and 3 cop cars finally come to get me. I remember my mom being downright irate because, "You were the only little blond-haired white girl in a f**king sea of black kids; not exactly unremarkable!"