RSVP: Blog Swaps and Kid Mobsters

Hello my favorite people!

I have a couple of stories to tell you, about making new friends and the life lessons you learn while at your company's karaoke night. Plus, I may or may not have signed up for VEDA. 

While all of that is in the works (aka while I eat chocolate and stare at a blank screen) please enjoy this post from Gretchin of Your Mom is Strange.  

Why? 'Cause it's 20sb Blog Swap Day! Also because she's pretty awesome and her blog has "your mom" in it. 

Click over to her blog to see me talk about Disney World and a sideways Mickey hat. 

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Ahh, summer vacation in the suburbs! The last few days of the 3rd-grade school year were filled with picnics, extra-long recess, and field trips to the dinosaur museum. There were no significant responsibilities to weigh us down, but still, when we were officially on summer vacation, the feeling of complete freedom was overwhelming. The possibilities were endless. We could sleep in, play all day, watch TV, and stay out late.

We lived across the street from a park with a swing-set, playground, and baseball field. So, we spent our days outside. Kick ball, swimming, hide-and-seek, hop-scotch, mud pies, camping, tree-climbing. I woke up each morning happily running through my mental checklist of summer activities.

Then, on day 5 of vacation, it happened.


I lazily wandered into the kitchen where Mom was making lunch, plopped down in a chair, and said with an exaggerated sigh, "I'm boooored..."

After declaring that statement "impossible," Mom shooed me out of the house, and I went to visit my best friend, Aleesha, who lived a few houses down from me. She was in the same predicament -- burnt out on summer excitement activity overload.

We sat on the front steps of her house, looking through a swimsuit magazine, picking out what we would wear to some imaginary beach party.

Across the intersection, in a gray house an elderly man sat on his porch. Aleesha observed him for a minute then said, "I dare you to call him a stinky old man."

"What!? No way!" I said.

"Chicken! Just do it. I will!" Aleesha declared as she stood up.

"Oh my gawd! Don't!"

Before I could object any further, Aleesha walked to the corner of the sidewalk and, facing the old man's house, yelled as loud as she could, "Hey, old man! You're so stinky!" I glanced blankly at Aleesha, then turned to the old man, horrified to see his reaction. Though the shade of his porch blocked our view slightly, I could see him turn to us, and I imagined he didn't look too happy.

Much to our surprise, a crackled voice yelled back:

"You little brat! I'm going to come over there and give you a spanking!"

I believed him and was ready to run and hide. As I turned to do just that, I heard Aleesha yell again, "really? You're so old, I bet you can't even get off your porch!"

"Aleesha!!" I said as I grabbed her arm, trying to rein her in. She started laughing, and it was contagious. I got laughing too.

Come to find out, for some reason unknown to us, the old man really couldn't get off his porch. And so began the Summer of Mischief.

Each day started with yelling at the old man. He did not disappoint, and I like to think that he even started to look forward to seeing us walk to the street corner.

We hid in the 3-feet tall grass in the field next to Aleesha's house, eating salt-and-vinegar potato chips, and yelling offensive things to kids walking by. We thought we were well hidden until one of the offended rode his bike over to where we were sitting. He looked down at us and asked politely, "What are you doing?"

"Eating chips," I answered.

"You're a couple of retards," he concluded -- the ultimate insult when we were seven-years-old.

"Okay," I said. He was about two years older than us, so we didn't argue, and he rode off without incident.

As with most summer activities, yelling insults at people got boring eventually too.

So, we told the kids at the park that the town drug-addict was really our father, and that we were adopted. He looked exactly like Charles Manson and was high enough to answer to "Dad" any time we saw him, so no one questioned it.

We staged a fight in the middle of the playground in which Aleesha and I pretended to argue over who would go down the slide first. We got so caught up in the fake push which triggered the fake wrestling that we didn't notice a crowd had gathered. A five-year-old walked up to us. When we stopped fighting and looked up, he said angrily, "Knock it off, you weenies!!"

We thought our little pranks were quite funny but eagerly moved on to some more daring tasks. We wrote our neighbor a love letter on a 500-dollar Monopoly bill and put it in his mailbox. We threw apples at cars and houses. We "painted" my parents' house with mud as high as we could reach. It looked like flood waters had risen to 3 feet above the ground line, as my father worked to scrub it off.

We told my sister she would die if she got too close to Mom's prize-winning, poisonous-thorn shooting rose bush. We tried to roll a softball underneath a car as it drove by Aleesha's house. I'll never forget the sound the ball made when it collided with the passenger door, then tires screeching and seeing one of our neighbors pull over, jump out of the car, and come hollering up the sidewalk. He was certain someone had shot at his car. Aleesha's dad sent me home that day.

We started our own club called the A & G Club. Our unspoken mission was to terrorize the neighborhood. We kept our funds, from any loose change we found, in an old wooden cat carrier behind the garage that had a diary lock on it. As soon as we saved enough (45 pennies each), we would ride our bikes to the store to buy ice cream. 

We were like kid-mobsters. It was exhilarating. The town was ours, and we felt like we ruled the neighborhood. That summer was the first and last time I was ever grounded or got in "serious" trouble, and the first time I laughed until I couldn't breathe. 

Aleesha pushed me to do things I would never think to do on my own. And even though those things were silly and childish, it made me feel like I was pushing myself to new limits.

I still think of those days when I have anxiety about trying something new. Every time I succeed, I feel that same rush that comes with overcoming my fear. 

Every child should have a Summer of Mischief and a friend who stands by you and says, "Chicken! Just do it!"