Since I've been cursed with a desire to be a writer, I always tried not to care too much about material objects, knowing that one day I'd probably have to give up most of them.
However, when my family moved from Milwaukee to Nashville last summer, they left a big pile of boxes in the basement. I waited until I was alone, which incidentally took several days in my family of five, before I began my search.
My original incentive - to prove I am in fact British royalty accidentally plucked from my birthplace and cruelly shipped to the United States - quickly changed when I realized how much about me my parents have stored in our basement.
It all started with the dress up box. One cardboard box filled with sequiney renditions of the Little Mermaid's brassiere and tail, a bride's veil that looked more like a lunch lady's hairnet than a new wife's trademark and a cowboy hat that my brother used to wear around with nothing else on in his early childhood.
They all whisked me back to the several future cult classics that have infiltrated my parents' home videos over the years. There was the one where my 5-year-old brother played the typical American kid unfortunate enough to come across an evil magnet possessed by the devil, played by me.
I portrayed Satan in a red flapper dress I'd had since kindergarten, a red bandana and wooden shoes. Clearly, I was well versed in sexy even when I was 10.
You have unleashed the evil!"" I screamed at my brother when he discovered the magnet.
""Oh crap!"" he yelled.
""It will swim through your veins and when you scream out in agony, all will fade and you will be left with nothing except the demon that will grow inside of you.""
""That can't be good.""
""And when the demon is ready to emerge, it will fly out of your belly with blood and guts and stuff like that.""
That was taped right after I mustered up the courage to ask where babies came from. The answer disturbed me greatly.
Moving on, the boxes soon represented my maturity into early adolescence when I stumbled across a karaoke machine I played with during my New Years party sophomore year of high school.
I recalled a friend of mine singing a song on the karaoke machine from ""Fiddler on the Roof"" as the clock struck midnight while the rest of the party watched from the couch.
""I wish I were a rich man,"" he sang.
I'm cool, right? I thought to myself while I watched. This is fun, right?
""Ya-ha-deedle-feedle, bubba-bubba deedle-deedle-dum.""
The popular kids are probably doing this exact same thing right now.
""All day long I'd biddy-biddy- bum.""
Shouldn't I be kissing someone right now?
""If I were a wealthy man.""
Isn't anyone kissing right now?
""If I were biddy-biddy rich.""
Oh my God. I'm a loser.
Once I got ""Fiddler on the Roof"" out of my head, I realized that my entire childhood lay in front of me in a bunch of cardboard boxes. I always tried to take on the attitude that material things don't matter, but I realize now I would have forgotten so many things about my past if my new basement hadn't come with some memorabilia to remind me of it.
I thought about continuing to look for my certificate or royalty, or at least a tiara or something, but decided against it in case I were to come across anything even more incriminating, like the cot we stored in our last basement. Instead I grabbed a regal looking bookend, hoped no one would miss it, and went upstairs.
If you have any magnets that have been acting up lately, e-mail Kiera at wiatrak@wisc.edu.
