Naughty, Naughty

Let's face it.  Every child is naughty sometime.  Even a good one.  Back before I ever had a child, daddy had a couple of friends stop by.  One brought two little boys with him.  The men began to shoot pool together in the living room.  I tried all I knew to make these kids happy.  A snack of cookies.  Showed them our assorted games.  They'd say they wanted one and as soon as I got it out and set up for them, they'd change their mind and want another.  This was beyond anything I had seen before.  They noticed a bowl full of hard candy on our coffee table and asked if they could have a piece.  Why sure.  As I was going about being a hostess to them and the men, I realized these kids were getting one piece after another, sticking it in their mouths, and then spitting it in the trash can only to turn around and get another piece.  You know your mama.  Have all you want, but don't waste it.  Their daddy was busy and oblivious to what they were doing.  So, I pulled out one more game to try to draw their interest.  And when they went into the dining room to check it out, I quickly opened the drawer on the table and dumped the candy in.  I returned the empty bowl to the table top.  And set down in the living room to relax.  It took no more than ten minutes for those two to tire of the new game and they headed back into the living room straight for the candy bowl.  Their eyes got big when they saw it was empty.  They looked at each other.  Then they looked at me.  I simply steadily returned their gaze.  Then I got up, went into the dining room to pick up the last game, and went back to my housework.  I left those horrid, hyper brats to their daddy to deal with.  Within 30 minutes, he was saying his goodbyes and they were gone.

I hope and pray neither of you were ever such a problem for anyone.  But you did manage to come up with a little naughty mischief of your own.

Thankfully, neither of you were ever truly bad kids.  Seldom really naughty.  And now that the years have gone by, it can actually be funny to talk of your childhood ventures into naughtiness. 

Bubba had three that stick out vividly.  The first, he was about 5 years old.  His cousin Holli was over.  They were playing in the back yard.  I was starting supper and would look out and check on them every 15 minutes of so.  On one peep, I saw feed being thrown from under the shed into the yard.  Outside I went.  When I got under the shed, much to my amazement all of the feed was on the ground.  I knew you knew better.  So, I asked Holli what happened.  But you asserted yourself and said it was you.  Your idea.  Later it came out that you didn't want to see Holli in trouble.

Cousins also led to your next big naughty.  Levi & Chris were over spending the night.  Daddy let you boys stay in the old Paw Paw camper.  Seemed like a wonderful adventure to give boys of about 8 and 10 years old.  Every hour one of us would walk out back and listen and look.  On one of my turns, I noticed things were suspiciously quiet.  (For reference, quiet kids are usually kids being bad.  Not good, as one might think.)  So, I crept out close enough to peak into a camper window.  There y'all were, with what looked like a reefer off an old Cheech and Chong movie.  Come to find out, you boys had taken a sheet of notebook paper, pulled some alfalfa hay out of a bale and rolled it up!!  Yeah, Daddy set y'all straight on that.  Wasting his expensive hay! 

And your worst naughty escaped happened when Bug was about 2 years old.  I had raked and burned leaves in the fire hole earlier that day.  The top looked like just leaves.  But simmering underneath was a coal hot bed.  You were outside to play with Bug.  And being over 11, I trusted all would be well as I tended to some things in the house.  Suddenly you burst in hollering to come get Bug.  I found her stroller and her in the fire hole.  She had tried to get out of it and her little bare feet had slid down passed the leaves and into the coals below!  I snatched her up and ran to the kitchen sink to start cool water over them. It was soon apparent she needed more.  So I ran a tub of water, loaded us into my Probe, and off we went toward the ER.  You holding her feet in the water and blubbering over and over "I'm so sorry, Bug"  Seems you had been hot-rodding her in the stroller.  Had tried to jump the firehole or some such thing.  Had thought it funny to leave her stuck there, never realizing the danger under the leaves. 

Bug's own naughty episodes were much milder by comparison.  Probably the difference between a little boy and a little girl.  She drew in marker on the back of a beautiful couch I had just been given when we added the trailer on the back of the little house.  And then once she had her own room, when trying to copy her brother, who had posted a note on paper to the front door of his bedroom, she had once again got out the markers and wrote on her door.  All of this before she started school.

I remember her locking herself into mine and Daddy's bathroom and then panicking and crying because she couldn't figure out how to get out.

But her worst stunt was cutting off a lock of Daddy's hair once while he slept.  We all know how he is about his hair!  He noticed.  He suspected.  He complained.  But it was a long time before we ever admitted his suspicions were true, fearing for Bug's life. 

Thank God, your stunts reaped no serious life altering consequences and we can look back now and laugh.