On the Edge of Seven

I never wanted to annoy my parents, but I seemed to have been a child that was a masters course unto herself, of how to get parents to eye roll, under the breath curse, head shake, deep breathe and ground me. But when I was that annoying child, my Dad owned this magical van conversion company, Sassi Chassi, (yes, that was really the name,) which, clearly, was my favorite place to hang out when I was a kid. I passed the time convincing the shop workers to give me cans of spray paint and allow me to deface scrap metal and plywood. Or, upon one life-changing day, finding the keys to the vending machine, where I would unlock the money drawer, steal some, then insert it back into the machine to get my snack of choice, generally animal cookies. Technically speaking, Sassi Chassi was the locale of my first job. When I was 4, I would spend hours rendering some museum worthy pictures with my trusty felt tips and the kid-friendly receptionist made the mistake of teaching this savvy 4 year old how to use the copy machine. After making roughly 26938 copies of my hands, face, elbows, brothers, and inanimate objects, I finally made copies of my latest masterpieces and sold them at the door, disarming customers for the tiny fee of 5 cents.
One fateful, rainy afternoon, my brother and I were snooping around the attic, searching for a treasure chest, relics of the old world, or at least some Fritos, but we discovered nothing more than trophies of my dad's beer softball league and some all softballs. I proceeded to immediately ruin our fun by throwing the softball upon the unfinished, insulate-y and treacherous side of the attic. My dad had warned us to never step foot onto that side of the attic and I can't tell you how amazingly seductive that made it for me. "I'll get the ball," I exclaimed, as I had one foot off the finished deck, my brother cackled, somehow knowing what was about to happen. As I was plummeting through the ceiling, 15 feet down to the middle of Sassi Chassi's showroom, I was debating over what I would tell my soon to be furious father. Not only was there now an Amy shaped hole in the ceiling, but during my belly flop I had managed to break the wires that were bracing up the latest models of luxury bug-shields, each of them hitting me in the face on their way down to the concrete floor. I looked up from whence I came and saw my brother's chubby face peering down with a look that captured worry partnered with extreme glee. My father bounded from his office, and matched the befuddled customers' agape jaws and simply asked with a furrowed brow, "What happened?" It was the moment of truth, the climax where I could prove I was wise beyond my years and simply fess up to my mistake. But this is not how I roll at 25 and was certainly not the way I rolled when I was seven, so I lied my ass off. "I was just sitting here playing hide-and-go-seek with my Spenser and all of the sudden all this stuff just came crashing down on me." I looked skyward and saw my brothers' head, still glued to its earlier position of, and I said, "Oh, dang, looks like he found me, gotta go, it's my turn to count!" Although this did amuse some of the customers, my Dad was not as impressed, and he snatched me up and flung me into the bed of his truck, where I proceeded to massage fiber glass insulation into my eyes, all the way home, where I showered away a sliver of my shame. Amazingly, I escaped the fall with only minor injuries, most of which only affecting my ego, and needless to say, I haven't been fond of attics since.