Alexandra Bogdanovic's Blog: That's life... - Posts Tagged "self-deprication"

When was the last time you had a good laugh? I don't mean a little chuckle. I mean the kind of laugh that makes your stomach hurt and leaves you breathless.
It happened to me last week -- and believe it or not, I was laughing at my own expense.
The cause of my hilarity can be found in a little brown essay book with "Rats!" on the front cover.
Yes, as a little girl I had a very vivid imagination. So I was probably eight or maybe nine when I wrote a short story about a massive rat invasion. Not surprisingly the great rat invasion of 1980 portrayed in the story caused a great deal of panic, especially in New York and Chicago.
Even though the rats in my story were rabid, "I" kept my cool when I came home and found a gigantic rat sitting on my pillow. I just figured the rat "was an expectant mother."
And when I saw another gigantic rat sitting on the table when I went to do my homework, I just figured he was "an expectant father."
While I was trying to get my homework done, scientists were busily devising a plan to vanquish the rabid rats. Plans to poison them with spray guns failed, but just when it seemed the rats would win, reinforcements arrived in crop dusters!
Looking back on it, the plot was laughable and there was absolutely, positively no character development to speak of. There were lots of errors; words were misspelled and I had a thing about putting hyphens where they didn't belong.
But, hey, I was just a little kid when I wrote it. And who knows. Maybe I wouldn't be an award-winning author and journalist today if I never plucked up the courage to write about those damned rats!
Until next time, "That's life..."