When I was six, my mother or my father did something horrible–I don’t remember exactly what, but it was probably, like, telling me I couldn’t have a cookie–and I decided to run away. I didn’t know where I was going to go, but I knew that living under the same roof as that monster (whichever parent it was) for another day was more than a sane human could be expected to bear. I realized I would need sustenance, so I brought a box of crackers with me (I had long since figured out how to climb up onto the kitchen counter to reach things in the cabinets above) along with two small bottles of Coca-Cola. Taking one last look around the house, my heart full of regret and conviction, bidding farewell to the books and furnishings and art that had been my constant companions forever, I opened the front door, stepped out into the sunlight of the free world, and spent the next twenty minutes walking around the block over and over again because I wasn’t allowed to cross the street by myself.
Eventually I made a virtue of necessity, forgave the offending parent, and came back home well in time to watch The Greatest American Hero.
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