My Traumatic Childhood I: Dirt In Your Eyes

Is it just me or has anyone else experienced traumatic childhood events that haunt you for the rest of your life in the form of flashbacks, blood-stained bathroom walls, or combination of the two?

I had a dream last night and, like the last dream I regailed you with, was not as much a dream as it was a flashback. I have a lot of flashbacks. Anyway, this flashback was to second grade. The scene opens on me and a few friends (Kyle, Ben, Mark, and Avrill) just covering a hole we had dug with sticks and leaves. The concealed hole was meant to be a trap for any unsuspecting passersby such as a deer, fox, or Chapley. Seriously though, who names their daughter Chapley? It wasn't a deep hole, but we had been working on it for a few recesses and with the sticks and leaves it was practically invisible. Anyway, at just about the time we were finishing up there comes this girl and her name is Mary Ann and she's like totally second grade hot. I don't think I need to go into the definition of "second grade hot" but let me just tell you that it most definitly involves those jellies sandals. So yeah, over comes Mary Ann and she tells me that she has something she wants to show me over on the train (we had a big wooden train that was big enough for us to climb inside and stuff). Well I walk over to the train and she tells me that the thing she wants to show me is in the caboose and so I climb in. Once inside I notice that there's nothing there and so I turn to leave but my exits are blocked by the sudden appearance of Mary Ann's posse. I don't want to sicken you with the details of what happend after that but let me tell you that when I finally got out of the caboose I had more dirt in my eyes than I did before I went in. I also had scratches on my face and arms from when the girls had thrown those spiny ball things that fall from sweetgum trees at me.

At this point I woke up from my dream.

Needless to say, ever since that day I can't look at sweetgum trees without wincing in pain. I'm also deathly afraid of topsoil and I've sworn to myself that I'll never let my daughter wear those jellies sandals.