Chapter 4 ~ Grounded For Life

I found the matter of getting grounded for defending myself against my brother more than a bit harsh so I quickly set out to make mama’s life a bit miserable. The item that came to mind, I’ve been told by those that know this story, I was cruel. However, in hindsight, it is so funny. And better still it worked, briefly.

My mama is terrified of spiders and snakes. Having a brother and a neighborhood of nothing but guys, I began my collection of fake, but real looking, creepier crawlers. It took me a bit to get a large enough collection, but once I was satisfied with the treasure I found I went on a search for fishing wire.

On a night that my parents had to go and deal with church issues, I found my chance for pay back on mama. I tied fishing wire on the tail end of the little critters and ran the wire under the carpet into my room with enough slack that when pulled I could cause them to move. Then I unmade my mama’s bed and began placing them in several different places around the bed and quickly made it back up for them not to be seen.

It was about time for me to go to bed when mama and daddy got home. I said my good nights to them both, went to bed and found the fishing wire hidden in the room and began attaching all the wires to my fingers. The idea being that when I moved around it would cause the critters to move and cause my mama some major grief.

This turned out to be one of my better jobs of torture towards any member of my family, well second best, if I say so myself.

My daddy was in his study preparing his sermon for the next morning. My brother was in his room sleeping and mama had gone to her room to read in bed. I had obviously fallen asleep and one of my cats found the fishing wire in my room and began playing with them one by one.

The cat began tugging which woke me up because basically it hurt. Fishing wire tied to your fingers isn’t the brightest idea with cats in the house. So I began trying to remove the cat from the wire, so I could go back to sleep, when I hear much to my delight my mama screaming bloody murder for my daddy to come and come quickly.

Just as I got my satisfaction on hearing her nails deeply applied to the ceiling while having my daddy fight the critters in her bed, I figured I had better act like I’m asleep real fast.

At first look, my daddy obviously believed that the critters were real and immediately told my mama to get out of the room. Then daddy moved closer to exam how best to handle this situation, when he realized that they were fake critters with fishing wire attached. Mama is screaming “insert name ~ don’t touch them the snake could be poisonous”. Then the cat struck again pulling even hard at the resistance my daddy was giving on the other end of the fishing wire. Causing me great pain and I quickly try and remove these stupid things from my finger when my daddy opens my door and flips on the light with varmints in hand.

My mama is white as a sheet and then quickly turns the darkest color of red I think I had ever seen to this point in my life. Rage took over her better senses. For once she was rendered speechless! No matter how hard she tried to scream, "I was grounded", all she could get out of her mouth was I want a switch. When I heard the word “switch” I was really praying she could have yelled you’re grounded.

It didn’t help my cause, in any shape or form, when I looked at my daddy for help. He was standing there doing everything within his power to not laugh right out in front of both of us. A point that did not go unnoticed by mama either. It caused her rage to go into full form.

This brings me to a question. What are parents thinking when they are about to give you a spanking they say, "This is going to hurt me more than it is going to hurt you”? REALLY? How exactly? Not unless you are going to hand me that switch and you are going to bend over. I never understood how it would hurt them at all, if anything, I think it something they learned in their torture 101/102 classes.

When I was growing up and I heard that line, I knew it was right before the swat happened. My parents should have figured out early that was also the line they’d give right before I’d bolt and run.

Just like everything else in life I didn’t let getting spanked easy on them. It was a racing match around the house. I don’t advise that to other children! The end of that result is further anger from the parents, causing a longer sentence to their enforced punishment.

The payback that I deemed against my brother was as classic as they come! It was so good that no one knew what I did. That is until we were adults sitting around talking about stunts we pulled while growing up.

I incorporated a friend’s help to seek justice on my brother. I found in a magazine where one could purchase itching powder. It was in some mail order magazine that came to the house, I was flipping through while learning my lesson. Why you wonder, well for many of my accused crimes you've read about thus far I'm sure.

I had some money, saved up for the times I wasn’t grounded, and was being paid for duties around the house. I quickly decided it was time to put that money to good use. It took two weeks to finally get the itching powder. My friend brought it to school on Friday. This was perfect timing because Saturday was laundry day. I was so excited I couldn’t see straight.

It was after all the laundry had been put up and my brother was still dealing with his beloved baseball cards that I snuck in his room. I quickly emptied two packs of this itching powder in his underwear drawer. I did this every Saturday until I ran out of the pack of 10 that I bought.

I never saw results while I was growing up like I was hoping. However, while we were sitting around as adults and discussing these stunts and I announced what I did. I rendered the room silent and my brother had the look that he was about to kill me go through his eyes. Mama and daddy were both laughing so hard they couldn’t see straight and said, “Well that explains it all now!”

I just looked at them and what I found out was this my brother scratched so hard and so often he was covered with welts all over his privates. Mama took him to the doctor and the doctor told her he was allergic to the laundry soap. She was also told it would take a couple of weeks to clear up. She changed the laundry soap about the same time I ran out of the itching powder.

My brother quickly informed me to be prepared for payback. See even as adults we still battle and look for redemption for a wrong made towards us. This is when I thank the Lord I live so far away from him.

Training my parents into my ideal form of parenthood was not an easy task. I still had to overcome these classes that were offered where they seemed to overachieve. However, I was just as determined as they were to train and mold them correctly as I saw fit.

MY INNER CHILD IS A SASSY LITTLE BITCH TOO