Tell us a secret, and make it good!

[Orrex]

[La Lioness Priyanka]

1. you start!

[1gobluedem]

3. I broke a valuable figurine of my mother's when I was nine...

My sister glued it back together and my mother still doesn't know. 37 years ago.

[Orrex]

4. Okay

When I was thirteen, I was home alone and amusing myself in my suburban backyard by lighting a gasoline-soaked tennis ball on fire and kicking it around. Unfortunately, it landed beneath a tall pine tree and ignited the dry, dead needles on the ground. I thought I extinguished it and continued on my merry way until I turned around a minute or so later and saw the lower branches of the tree engulfed in flame.

I tried to beat out the flames with a lawnchair cushion, but it erupted into a cloud of flaming sponge-bits. Next I tried to use the garden hose, but it was so cold (early winter) that the hose had become brittle and snapped off about ten feet from the spigot.

I then called the operator (911 wasn't yet online) who tried to connect me to the fire department, but I didn't know the name of the station that served my locality, so I had to be reconnected several times. Eventually a dozen huge trucks showed up and extinguished the tree while the upper half was still largely untouched.

I had a jerk of a teacher who was on the local volunteer fire department. Every time he saw me in school thereafter, he half-jokingly accused me of starting the fire while secretly smoking cigarettes under the tree. Soon, pretty much the whole school had joined in, and I was humiliated but let the accusation stand because it was a lot less embarrassing than the real story.

The moral? Do not kick a flaming tennis ball under a pine tree.

[Taverner]

2. When I was 20, I motorcycled from Seattle to San Diego

Without my parents even knowing I had a bike...

[LaurenG]

5. I hitchhiked from far West Texas to NY City

and then found Grand Central Station and rode the train to Norwalk Connecticut when I was but a lass.