Possession is 10/10′s of the law.

In the summer of my 6th year, my parents had a large pile of dirt in the driveway. I have no idea why they had this dirt or where the dirt came from. My guess then is the same guess I have now: there was a big hole somewhere…either that, or a giant dirt eating monster had a big dirt meal and threw it up on the driveway. But that’s ridiculous, right?

RIGHT?

This pile of dirt became my muse and the focal point of my existence for three whole months. I built tunnels and bridges, space ports and landing strips, castles and battle grounds, and so on around the dirt pile. I probably had over 1000 dollars worth of random Matchbox cars, Star Wars action figures, and little green army men scattered all throughout the large, brown lump of solid imagination.

Sometime in late August of that year, a burly man backed a pickup truck into our driveway. I’ll never forget the back of the truck. It had a large bumper sticker on it that said “Trickle Down My Ass”, which always struck me as really funny. He stepped out of his truck in overalls, a baseball cap, and those light brown work boats that all the worker guys in New Jersey seem to wear. The role model to the Blue Collar Comedy Tour practically said “Git-R-done” as he entered our house.

After a short period of overheard, awkward silences from the kitchen that overlooked our scenic driveway, the man came back outside and informed me that he was here for the dirt. “THE” dirt. Not “MY dirt, please.” “THE” dirt.

Even in my 6 year old mind, I knew that was fucked up. Could he not see the masterpiece that I had created? I had just seen Star Wars for the 800th time, and I could see parallels between the movie and my dirt’s future. I couldn’t let the people of my own personal Alderaan fall to the force of Darth Overalls and his Death Car.

This was the first time that I had stood up to someone a lot older and a lot bigger than me. I climbed on top of the dirt pile and politely told this wretched-smelling mouth breather that it was my pile of dirt and he would take it over my dead body…or something along those lines. I might be a projecting a bit here…

Actually, it was probably more along the lines of “NO, MINE!” What I lacked in vocabulary, I made up for in imagination.

He explained something about him paying for it, blah blah blah, but I wouldn’t let him finish. I told him that it was my world and he couldn’t have it. As we went back and forth for the next half hour – him trying to explain personal property philosophy and me explaining that I didn’t give a shit – I got a glance of my parents slowly sinking down under the window sill out of embarrassment.

After 45 minutes of arguing with this earth-stealing, ass-trickling super villain, all I could see was the very top of  my parents’ eyes and the half orbs of their descending heads.

In the end, I won. I don’t know or care what happened with my parents and the wannabe dirt thief. All I knew at the time was that I defeated the enemy and claimed victory in the battle for my earth. I held onto my earth-eating monster vomit for a whole lifetime (one week) until I started kindergarten and forgot all about that crappy pile of dirt in the driveway.