Fiberglass Childhood

Today I got a fibreglass sliver. When I told my friend this happened, I thought immediately it would be followed by some sort of solidarity. "Oh yes Katie! Those are the worst! They never come out! They only instead work deeper and deeper into your body until they become part of your bone structure."

Nope.

Instead I got, "what the f*ck is that?"

I feel like a huge part of my childhood was spent getting and subsequently spending time removing slivers of fibreglass lodged into my fingers and oddly...ass cheeks. I thought this was something that most people experienced. But then as I started to recount my experiences of when I GOT these slivers, I realised they were completely unique to me as most children's grandparents didn't have life-size fibreglass frames of cars in their backyards. The whitest of trash.

As mentioned four words ago, yes, my grandpa did have a fibreglass car in his yard. How it got there and why, I never knew or asked - I just knew I never wanted it to go away. My cousins and I would crawl in and out of it, pretending to drive away from heists etc. all while dodging hornet nests and slivers. We never felt the sharp pangs of skin destruction until after a play date and our adrenaline had settled, then it was game over. I wouldn't be able to sit for days. I would have sharp, cut-like sensations on the back of my legs/ass causing me to whine and hop around in agony. My grandma would give us damp facecloths to soak the wounds and my dad would scratch the area with a credit card, hoping to remove any bits from the surface. It was true though, fibreglass once in, never out. I'm sure that parts of my body are completely indestructible due to their plastic content.

Even as the car continued to degrade and decompose and our wounds became more and more severe, we all hoped the car would stay forever. I remember the day it was gone and I was heartbroken. The car was a cruel mistress, but it provided hours and hours of entertainment. Nearly a masochist lifestyle at 10, but we loved that car. Today the sharp burning in my finger reminded me of these sweet times and I longed for warm summers, short shorts, and burning red back of the thighs.