--Over the weekend my Dad was telling the Secrets about some of the
“bad” things I did as a youngster.
Thankfully, he was selective, and only brought up stories he thought
were funny.Some from that era
are not funny at all, of course, and a few will never be
spoken of again...But he just picked three or four from the mischievous
category, ones that are safe and can usually be counted on to bring a
chuckle.
When conversation goes in this direction, the “glue on the commode
seat” story is always the first one out of the gate.I don’t say commode anymore (it’s one of those words, like
underpants, that makes me cringe), but my parents do, and that’s how
the story is known.
When I was in elementary school, the principal called my mother on a
regular basis to tell her about what I’d done this
time.If it hadn’t been the era of the ten-pound rotary phone, I’d
guess my Mom’s work number had been saved on speed-dial.But I don’t think speed-dial was invented at the time, so the
number was probably just printed on a laminated card, and propped-up
beside the telephone.
Anyway, my Mom received one of these calls while she was at work one
day, and the principal told her I’d smeared Elmer’s glue all over
the toilet seat, and a little girl sat in it.
To tell you the truth, I can’t remember
this episode very well.I don’t
know who sat in the glue, or even what grade I was in.And that’s probably because I didn’t get into trouble.
My parents, you see, thought it was funny, and my mother supposedly had
a difficult time acting all shocked and mortified while talking to Mrs.
Jones, when she secretly wanted to bust out laughing.
If there weren’t repeated retellings of the story, I probably
wouldn’t remember it at all.It’s
highly overrated, in my opinion.I’d
accomplished so much more.
Yes, it was the regular lineup of stories this past weekend.My Dad talked about me repeatedly riding my bike through the
front door of the Laundromat, and out the back door, making the old lady
who worked there almost lose her mind with anger and frustration. And he
touched briefly on the time Bill and I stretched a cable across
Myers Avenue
at windshield level, and somebody called the fire department.
Etc., etc.
But the final story was a surprise.It’s
one that’s not usually trotted out on such occasions, and something I
hadn’t thought about in years.
There was a toy store in our town (House of Toys) that sold magic tricks
and various novelty items.You
know, fake dog shit, and “chewing gum” that turns a person’s lips
and teeth the color of roofing tar, and crap like that.Over the years, my brother and I tested almost every one of those
so-called novelties -- including cigarette loads.
My parents quit smoking fifteen or twenty years ago.But during the 1970s I think it was a law that every adult chug
down at least two packs of cigs per day.And my parents are very law-abiding people.
So, they’d leave their cigarettes lying around, and my brother and I
would slip explosive devices into the tips of one or two per pack, and
just sit back and wait for the hilarity to commence.
I don’t think I’d take it as calmly as they did; I’m almost
certain I’d put an end to it the first time one of those deals went
off, and I was left blinking real fast and looking like a blue-ribbon
douchenozzle.But my parents were
good sports about it, and allowed it to continue.
For a while, anyway.
We were at a restaurant one evening, Shoney’s I think, and my mother
was preparing to settle back for an after-dinner smoke.And the shit exploded.
The place went completely silent and every head in the house turned in
our direction.And that was the
final straw.She and my Dad
didn’t think it was funny anymore (we didn’t know when to stop), and
warned us to knock it off.There
was tension in the air, over by the all-you-can-eat hot bar, and we
promised not to do it anymore.
My mother then tore-away the shredded tip of her cig, and lit what
remained.And it went off again!And this time it was a doozy.It
sounded like a firecracker, and it sent tobacco flying in every
direction.
We were the center of attention one more time, and my Mom was now
sitting in that boof with nothing but a charred cigarette filter hanging
off her lips, and a surprised look on her face.I think she even had bits of paper in her big ol’ Newlywed
Game hair-do.
I’m not sure what happened, maybe we’d doubled-up on the load?‘Cause that thing was loud.I remember we’d
started shoving ‘em way up into the cigarettes with toothpicks, so
they’d explode halfway through, instead of right away.But that second load was unnaturally strong.People seated all around us were brushing away the residue, and
shaking their heads in irritation.
Yeah, that didn’t go over very well.And
I remember praying to God Himself for there not to be another load
waiting out there to explode later in the day.We’d taken it too far, as usual, and had no way of knowing if
it was over.
Luckily for us, though, it was
over.And we officially retired
the cigarette loads, and moved on to safer novelties such as rubber
vomit, and Pepsi cans with fake soda spilling out of the tops.
The Questions of the Day:what
childhood stories, from the safe mischievous
category, get told about you at family gatherings?Use the comments link below.
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