The Adventures of Normal

I was thinking today about how remarkable stories always get told, but dull or average ones very rarely do. Stupidly, and for no particularly good reason, I thought I might go a little way toward rectifying that.

Childhood

Many things about my childhood were typical, average, unremarkable. There are some exciting adventures, some run-ins with crazy relatives, and lots of amusing things that resulted from children getting words wrong, animals embarking on feline/canine shenanigans, or mothers saying funny things when they were half asleep or stressed. I am not going to discuss any of those things right now.

So here are the Childhood Adventures of Normal: I have siblings and parents. I went to the dentist regularly, but not as often as I went to school. I didn't like Brussell sprouts but I did like ice cream.

I don't remember being toilet trained, but evidence suggests I must have been.

I did not display any outstanding talent for literary, scientific or mathematical genius. Nevertheless, I was not especially slow either. I was able to spell my last name by the time I was in Year 4, unlike the unfortunate Adrian Indy-andy-orio*.

My family didn't belong to a religious cult that made me bang saucepans and preach aloud in the local shopping centre on Saturday mornings, and I never suffered from any rare skin diseases or mysterious ailments that had an A Current Affair reporter interviewing my parents while I was filmed playing on the swing in the background, bandaged to the hilt.

So, all in all, pretty normal.

*Not his real name