The year is nineteen seventy something or other... All I know is we had a yellow naugahyde chair in the living room and my dad owned a leisure suit or two. Wore them in public and everything... I have pictures. (Are you reading this Dad? I have
pictures. Leisure suit! Big honking sideburns too! Feel free to send cash to me, care of the
please don't ever post those pictures online fund.)
Anyway, the year is somewhere firmly in the seventies, and we are living in a nice little townhouse community north of Baltimore. (for all you Balti-bloggers who know your way around, I grew up in Rodgers Forge. My mom still lives there, actually.) My sister is about 5, and is playing in the back yard of a neighbor. My dad is on our back porch, fixing the porch light, which was... well... I don't know what was wrong with it, but it clearly needed fixing.
Back in those days, there were a few rowdy teens who would tear down the alley behind our house in their bitchin' Trans-Ams, so my sister, being young and not great at looking out for herself, was expressly forbidden from setting foot in the alley without a parent. She was okay as long as she was playing in a neighbor's yard, but stepping out onto the concrete to risk becoming huggy-bear's new hood ornament was absolutely verboten. (As an aside,
all the kids had dipshit nicknames back then. It was just the times. One kid down the alley was known as "Bloody-bear," and a girl who lived behind us was named Karen, but went by "Coola." Don't ask me to explain the sad state of hooliganism in the 70s.)
Anyway, to cut to the chase, my sister does exactly what she's not supposed to do, and steps into the alley, and my dad, fixing the porch light, sees her do this. He yells out her full name (You know how parents do that - The middle name gets tossed in there and you
know you're
really in for it...) and adds something like "You get your tiny heiney over here right this second!!!"
My sister knows exactly what she did and she knows she's in the shit, as they say. Her eyes well up with tears. She begins the slow march back to our yard, and down the walkway, and up the steps to the porch, all the while no doubt imagining the major punishment she's about to receive. My father continues to fix the porch light while she's doing the mini-death-march, waiting until she has arrived, trembling behind him before he turns around.
As I've mentioned several times, he's fixing the porch light. I keep mentioning it because now it becomes important to the story: As he turns to face my terrified sister she looks at him with wide horrified eyes and immediately sees the screwdriver he has forgotten he is holding in his hand.
And this is where my little sister yells - nay,
screams - to the entire neighborhood:
NO DADDY, PLEASE DON'T SCREW ME!!!
Only in the 70s, folks, could this happen without Child Services knocking down our door a half-hour later. These days, the folks that live around you would probably just saddle up a lynch mob. I think of this story every time I read in the news about some poor couple hauled off to jail for taking naked pictures of their baby. I know those laws protect the children, and it's probably better to err on the side of caution, but thank god no one who heard that had my dad hauled off in chains.
As it was, he had to cover his face with a handkerchief so that my sister (who was still supposed to be in trouble, you understand) couldn't see him cracking up. What a world.
On a completely unrelated note, I am getting closer every day to convincing Sally to start blogging. We even have the prefect name picked out for her blog. (Not that I'm going to tell you what it is...) If you know Sal, feel free to apply gentle peer pressure to get her to leave the world of the lurkers and join those of us who fill the internet with our useless crap.
She will cave soon, I can feel it!
