In 5th grade, I had had enough wondering what getting messy would feel like and instead decided to do something about it. My first memories are of pretending snow was gunge when I was 6. By 5th grade I was counting years of fantasizing and ready to do it for real. The only reason I ever really wanted to grow up was to be able to buy lots of food and gunge, and maybe meet other messy minded people. As a child I was frustrated by having to wait years to get good gunge. I had to do something, so I decided to sneak chocolate sauce into the back room pantry, way behind some unwanted dry goods. If the missing chocolate syrup became an issue, it would just turn up in the pantry, a totally normal place for it to be. This is what I told myself. And to my delight, the syrups started to accumulate, siphoned off from month after month of groceries shopping. I decided to try the same gag with whipped cream, and my family once again noticed nothing and simply went out and bought more whipped cream. Hidden behind expired items was 6 cans. My ultimate triumph in secret childhood gunge. While my sister was watching tv and my mom watching baseball I slipped the cans from the back of the fridge. My heart pounded so hard as I snuck the incriminating items into the downstairs bathroom. I sprayed the whipped cream onto a series of paper plates, opened the syrup, got in the tub and suddenly felt even more nervous. I told myself it was stupid. That I might get caught. Teased over this secret by my cruel sister for the rest of my childhood. Reminded myself it might be hard to clean, it might make me break out, it might smell. All these fears, anxieties, almost a force separating me and my face from the big fluffy whipped cream pie I was holding, staring at. Finally I said do it. And smushed the pie up and down in my face. I was so happy, so relieved of that anxiety and fear. I poured the chocolate on my head and watched it streak over my head and face in the mirror. I loved how I looked covered in food. I realized it was the only time I felt comfortable with my body, when I was covered in lots of fun food. I pied myself a few more times, taking breaks to dump thick chocolate thru the whipped cream on my head and face. When I was done, I sprayed myself right from the can and built a big pile of whipped cream on my face. Pushing it down I thought about how glad I was that I knew what being gunged felt like. For years I wanted to know but was too scared to try. Once I did I knew I loved how it felt just like how it looks. To this day, under the deck that's coincidentally a short toss from the bathroom window, are several rusty cans of 90s vintage whipped cream. Tossed out in secrecy by me during my childhood gunge adventures