FCCQ | Stranger Things

Here's something new I want to try. CT from Nerd Lunch recently gave the podcast's website a new look and one of the cool updates is the Fourth Chair Army page. You can search for episodes by particular guests (like me, for instance) and there's also a section at the bottom that randomizes a Fourth Chair Carryover Question (FCCQ). If you're not familiar with the show, that's the part where a guest one week leaves a question for the following week's guest to answer. It's super fun and there have been a lot of great discussion questions over the years.

So, with the blessing of the fellas, I'm going to occasionally pull up an FCCQ and answer it here. Starting now.



Way back on Episode 51, Rondal Scott of Strange Kids Club asked appropriately, "What's the strangest thing you remember doing as a kid?"

It's always tough for me to know what weird things I did as a kid that were unique to me and what was just me being a regular kid. For instance, I was narcissistic enough to imagine that I was starring in my own reality show and I didn't dream that other people fantasized about the same thing until The Truman Show brought us all out of the closet to talk about it.

I also know that I wasn't the only kid to cast myself in my own adventures and secretly roleplay my way through the day, but I don't know to what extent other kids did it. So I always suspected that the length and details of my imaginary adventures were a little strange.

They got especially involved anytime we went on vacation. Changes in scenery and new things to do were exciting, so I would try to create a story that tied the whole trip together. Growing up in Florida in the '70s and early '80s was a treat, because Disney World was close and not as expensive as it is today. And I had a recurring story that I would replay every time we went.

It was a simple story. I was some kind of space/time-traveling cop on the hunt for a criminal mastermind. But my time machine wasn't a slow, klunky TARDIS; it was a personal device that either fit in my pocket or I would wear on my wrist or something. And it would allow me to instantly transport from one time period or part of the world to another. So I'd chase him from Main Street's turn-of-the-century US to the jungles and seas of Adventureland and then I'd pop over to the American West in Frontierland to track him some more. Then through a haunted mansion and on to Medieval Europe in Fantasyland and finally we'd end up in the "present" of my story: Tomorrowland. Which of course culminated in a wild race through the stars via Space Mountain. Later, my man safely in custody, I'd chill back at my hotel while waiting for my next assignment.

You can tell me if that's strange. Maybe I was a normal kid after all. But please also tell me what's the strangest thing you remember doing as a kid?

Disney World map scan from MousePlanet.com.