I just remembered an incident in which I was being really Goddamned annoying, but I didn't realize it until just now. I must have been five. (Incidentally, almost all my childhood stories seem to start with, "I was about five." I must be remembering them wrong. Or everything happened to me at the age of five, and it's all been downhill from there. Or perhaps five was the age at which I gained full self-awareness and everything previous just feels like it happened to me when I was five. Five is also a good age to use when you are telling about something bad or stupid you did. It's old enough for you to be active and able, but young enough that you can write off anything stupid you did as being because you were "young." There is some shit you can pull off at five that just wouldn't fly at seven.) Anyway, I was around five years old, and for some reason my dad had to take care of me after preschool or daycare or something. Noah wasn't there, so maybe he was with mom. Dad had an after-work meeting or conference to to attend at the Game and Fish Department. I was super bored with the grown-up goings-on, so I went out to the lobby during the proceedings. The lobby is a pretty cool place. They have all sorts of wildlife exhibits and a very large aquarium stocked with the various fishes of North Dakota. So I was wandering around, checking out the flora, fauna and fishes when a particular idea struck my fancy. I decided I'd try to imitate the call of the wild turkey. At the time I thought I made a pretty awesome turkey-caller. So awesome, in fact, that I spent the next half hour to hour calling, loudly, to any turkey/animal/thing in the vicinity.

It's not until just now that I realized how annoying that must have been to the people at the conference; to have some five year old in the lobby making loud avianesque noises for the better part of the evening. At the time I had no clue. When it was done I asked my dad if he had heard, any, I don't know, TURKEYS??? Guess What!! It was me!!

-Seth