Customized

The first time I customized my room was when I was 7. I had a beautiful room that was Rainbow Fish themed. I loved the walls and patterns shimmering with a tinsel-y texture like the scales on Rainbow Fish, my fancy bean bag chair, my tv, my bed, everything. I loved that my dad had made this room for me. He’d painted each of our rooms, made my brother a custom bed and was a man of all trades (except, my mom made him hire a professional for all things electrical after he electrocuted himself in ‘99). I loved my room and knew how much hard work he had put into it. So to this day, I don’t know what came over me. All I really remember from my thought process was I had just watched Shawshank Redemption earlier. I rummaged through our kitchen drawers, pulled out the dullest butter knife, and crawled under my bed.

I’m amazed nobody caught me. At least, not until I was a good 3 inches into the support beam. I must have been down there for hours. Determined, with a plan, and unaware I was about to get the most heart stopping, blood draining, pee-your-pants inducing lecture from my mom.

I didn’t even close my door when I set out on my excavation project. Snowflakes of drywall coated my hands, the carpet, and the ends of my hair, there were carpet patterns digging into my forearms. My mother walked in, seeing my feet sticking out from the bottom of my bed. “It’s time for dinner.” I froze, mid cut. “Danielle, I said it’s time for dinner.” The reality of what I was doing and why it was bad didn’t really hit me until she walked into my room. There’s a long pause. “What are you doing?” Her tone dropped, no thoughts of dinner on her mind anymore.

“Uh... sleeping?” it came out as more of a question, obviously not fooling my mom. “Come out. Now.” her voice was low, like she had a cold. It had been a while since I was in trouble last and knew this was going to blow it for me. I was definitely going to lose at least one SpongeBob sticker on my ‘good deeds’ sticker board. So, what did I decide to do? Nothing. I just laid there pretending I didn’t hear her. I figured since I said I was sleeping; I should pretend I was asleep.

Can you believe that didn’t work? Yeah, I couldn’t either at the time. The clacking of slippers on the hard wood floor recedes away from my door and for a moment I think I might be safe. I still had my butter knife in hand, spliced into the drywall. The return of footsteps, now twofold, made their way back down the hallway and into my room. My dad’s gravelly voice was stern, something I rarely heard from him. “Danielle, stop messing around.” My mother chimed in with her iconic mom tone, “come out right now.”

With the largest look of regret, I slowly slid myself out from underneath the bed, propped myself up and turned around, shiny butter knife still in hand. My mom didn’t' miss a beat, “What the heck were you doing with that?” she held her hand out, and I obediently dropped it into her palm, a dog giving up his bone. “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Why is it white?” she inspected the dust particles. Knowing there was no getting out of it I admitted to what I had done. I’d never seen my mom’s face that red, or my dad's exacerbated held-in chuckle. “We’re very disappointed in you.” he mumbled out as he left, his parental façade finally cracking. The scolding I got from my mom lasted so long that dinner was cold.

The next morning my dad made me fix the wall. I learned how to use a Putty Knife, a paint roller, and how to tape down edges. It was supposed to be a punishment, but I was all over it like bees on honey. Hanging out with my dad was great, too. In retrospect, I think my mom yelling at me should have been enough to deter me from ‘customizing’ my room again, and it did... For about 8 years until I decided to cover my white walls in red handprints and lyrics from Simple Plan. Ah the cringe-y memories of being a teenager.

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NOTES:

This was originally written as a creative nonfiction exercise. Due to this, and it being a memory from me as a child, some of the details are a bit exaggerated/ might not be entirely true. I did write this with the intent of making it as accurate as I could remember, but had to fill in some gaps. All the same, I hope you enjoyed this small snippet from my childhood.