guest post: Rebekah Gladys Coyan

Rebekah circa 2004

My life according to me

The extraordinary life story of Rebekah Gladys Coyan

So, you want to know my story? I think that I’ll start where all great stories start – THE BEGINNING. I was born on December 2^nd, 1997 in some random hospital on the coast of California. Because I was semi-reluctant to be born, the nurses had to repeatedly shove my wailing, purple head into an oxygen tank. Eventually, I started breathing, and THUS THE LEGACY BEGINS! I was taken home by my parents (obviously), and I spent the first five years of my childhood in a big house on Chamise Drive. I was a fairly smart infant, learning how to walk 6 months earlier than the rest of my peers. This gave me a great advantage over them, and rather than using my talent to help them, I used it to steal their toys. I would walk up to them, nab their slobbery gnaw-toy, and make off with it as fast as my stubby little sausage legs would take me. I would let out a maniacal cackle every time that I looked back at them, helplessly crawling after me. Yep, I lived a pretty peaceful life. That is, until I entered my third year. You see, even as a toddler I was very paranoid, questioning my very existence and panicking over such trivial things like death, illness, and boogers. (The latter, by the way, were the trendy snack for kids my age at the time. I would see the other kids in my preschool eating them, and I didn’t quite know what to make of it. One day, my curiosity got the better of me, and I tried it. I didn’t see what all the hoopla was about.) My parents were able to keep my shaky mental state in the normal zone until we went shopping at the local Harley-Davidson. Oddly enough, it wasn’t the skulls, flames, or creepy shoppers that unnerved me. It was the mannequin. For some reason, the mere existence of a plastic rendering of a human being terrified me, and I spiraled into a full-fledged panic attack. My parents did the sensible thing and ushered me out of the building in record time. Back in the car, on the way home, I was trying to calm myself down by the means of self-therapy. “It’s okay, they’re only plastic…” I consoled myself. Then I came to a horrible realization. “MY CAR SEAT IS MADE OF PLASTIC!!!” Yeah, I’m honestly surprised that my parents haven’t disowned me yet. Around this time, my sister was born. I was violently and dramatically ill whilst she was being born, (I blame that one kid on the McDonald’s playground who said that his stomach hurt.) but I recovered a few days afterwards and honestly, I couldn’t see what my parents were getting so worked up over. So what? Yes, there’s a baby in our house. But all she does is sleep, cry, urinate, defecate, and spit up. Whatever. Life goes on. When I was 6, we moved to a new house, which I LOVED. And I really mean that. I had my own portly, ant-infested room, my own lizard, and my own desk! (On which my kid sister gleefully committed URINE.) But I knew that the bliss wouldn’t last. And I was right. The bliss lasted 3 years. 3 YEARS. That’s unfair. Yes, one fateful day I was rudely pushed onto a plane. A plane that took me to some strange forested land that smelled of turnip herb soup. A land where people communicated in gibberish. And they expected me to carve out a life here! Ugh, I swear coming here did some major damage to my already-shaky psyche. And to make things EVEN WORSE, my parents lovingly enrolled me in 3^rd grade. In the local school. A school that was rated as THE WORST IN THE COUNTRY!!! Ah, Zakladni Skola. Where 8^th graders set 1^st grade bathrooms on fire. I HATED that school as if it were the fiery pits of hell, reducing my easily burnt skin into mere flakes of ash. I had to endure this pit of torture for 3 years. And it didn’t get ANY easier either. In my last year, I bumped up to 6^th grade. 6^th grade = 20 HORRIBLE PERVERTED MEAN PSYCHOTIC FUTURE CRIMINALS! As you can see, I’m a little bitter. But fortunately, my mother got a job at Townshend, and the rest is history. Anyways, I’m sure that I’ll tell you the rest of my story later. Trust me, I haven’t changed much. I hope that you enjoyed this brief insight into my twisted mind.