Running Away Checklist

I was organizing files tonight and I found a file that my mom had made of my old keepsakes and records. While going through it, I came across a folded up piece of lined paper which, when opened, read:

• bike
• pump
• bug catcher
• screw driver
• food 
• clothes
• tent
• canteen
• baseball cards
• money

Attached to this strange list I had written was a note by my mom:

"Fall 1998: Jenny wrote this running away checklist after reading a 'Boxcar Children' book. She felt compelled to run away because someone in the book did!"

I laughed out loud when I read this. So I went to ask my mom about it, having no recollection of that "troubled" time in my life. She told me, "One night when you were six, you were particularly huggy and kept saying things about how much you are glad to have known me and how much you miss me when you don't see me. The next day,  you and Nathaniel went outside for recess for fifteen minutes. When it was time for you all to come in, only Nathaniel came to the door. 'Where is Jenny?' I asked. 'I am not supposed to say.' he replied. So I finally got him to say where you were. 'She is running away.' So I found you behind the shed, and asked you why. You had a sad look on your face and said, 'The kids in the Boxcar Children book ran away, so I felt I had to.' You had been reading those books, and apparently they constantly made you feel the need to empathize with the characters. So we made you stop reading them."

Well, this little anecdote made my evening. I am slowly remembering how much of a dreamer I was as I child. How did my parents ever survive me?