Many traumatic things have happened to me in my life.  I’m sure we’ll get into them all fairly soon.  However, this is the first indelible memory of what would prove be a significant and long-lasting childhood trauma.  I know what you’re thinking: my parents smacked me around or left me prey to some pederastering uncle.  Nay, nay.  Not all abuse is physical, nor does all abuse leave scars the naked eye can see.

When I was seven, my parents took advantage of me for their own sadistic entertainment.  Even as a young child, I exhibited the greedy tendencies that rule the man I have become.  Exploiting this for their own gain, my parents suckered me into the following arrangement: my father took out a nice crisp five-dollar bill and put a piece of tape on one end.  He then affixed the tender to the door frame of our laundry room, letting the tail of the bill hang down perhaps seven feet above the floor.  The arrangement was simple: if I could leap up and touch the bill, the money was mine, no strings attached.

To borrow the expression of another, more famous writer, a lot of your ping-pong balls are plinking around the draw tank at that age.  I thought this was possibly the best deal ever.  All I had to do was launch myself skyward, make contact with the bill, and the money was mine.  It never occurred to me that the last display of athleticism I put on was as a gamete, when I outraced all the other sperm to fertilize the egg that would eventually yield me.

Nevertheless, I set to the task with my typical vigor and brio.  I parked myself beneath the bill and launched myself upwards.  I was short, both literally and figuratively.  I stood perhaps four-foot-six-inches, and could jump about a foot on a good day.  Even with arms fully outstretched and on my best leap, this wasn’t going to happen.

But it never occurred to me to do the math.  Each day I would position myself under the dollar bill like an insouciant cat, swatting away at a prize firmly beyond my reach.  I decided I could jump higher if only I gave myself a running start.  I would start in my parents bedroom, run down the length of the hall, through the kitchen, finally vaulting myself, a vanilla Carl Lewis, futility embodied.  My parents, surely amused by my tireless antics, became confused and then alarmed as their only son continued this fool’s errand.  They had me tested to see if I was retarded.  Amazingly, I was not.

I have no idea how long the bill hung- time is a little fuzzy at that age- but I remember the day I finally got that fucking five dollar bill.  It was an unremarkable day, and I don’t remember what I did with the money, but I still remember the almost shocking sensation of jumping and- finally- making contact.  After hundreds or thousands of idiotic jumps, I had literally grown tall enough to reach the money.  For my tenacity, I was rewarded with enough money to buy a value meal.  It was bittersweet; I had chased my dreams and had even accomplished them, only my aspirations were stupid, terrible ones.  To this day, I still wonder: is it better to be a persevering ass or an ass that gives up easily.