Today’s prompt from The Daily Post: What’s The Most Trouble You Have Ever Been In?
Oh my God. Are you for real? Which time? My mom reads my posts. Not to mention my sweet, sweet sister who has not ever been in any trouble. I was the rebellious child.
Thinking back to my childhood years, envisioning several minor yet, noble incidents like the time I whipped that kid in the neighborhood for calling my baby brother a name. Then, there was the time that I got caught sneaking out. That doesn’t include all the countless times that I snuck out and didn’t get caught. Andrea Schmoller and I had made so many prank phone calls one day that her dad’s phone was cut off just until he came home though and could talk to the phone company. There was this other time that was really bad. The terrible, horrible, notebook incident that caused my mom to go into labor with my baby brother Matt. In my mind, I am seeing the event. The one I am trying to avoid……….
I am really very ashamed still to this day and I am 41 years old. I did most of my growing up in Lilburn, Georgia. When we first moved there from Alabama, my parents rented a house while they had one built. We finally moved into our new home. The house was inside Cambridge Farms Subdivision. It was a stuffy neighborhood at first. You know the kind where you didn’t step in another person’s yard because your going to hurt the grass or something. I don’t know. My mom and dad(step-dad) were married in the new home. The house was large. It was beautiful. To my mom, the house signified her own accomplishments. My mom is the best role model a girl could have had growing up. I am proud of her.
This particular summer I had to go to summer school. I would not finish in time to begin our family vacation. Everyone was on their way to Hilton Head, South Carolina. I would have to stay behind and finish summer school. Afterwards, I would fly to Hilton Head to meet up with the rest of the family. My dads parents were also in Hilton Head it was to be the first time that we met them. They were from New York. They were to come back to Lilburn with us to see the new house.
The day my family left my parents were going to take me over to a friend’s house where I would stay until summer school was complete. My dad had taken great pains to be sure the windows of the house were locked and secured. He even placed chairs under the door knobs for extra protection. Having already schemed a plan with Karen and Leigh I told my parents that I had forgotten something inside the house as we were backing out of the driveway. So my dad pulled back up and handed me the house key. I went inside and unlocked the back door and removed the chair from under the knob. Picked up my bag I had pretended to forget and out the door I went.
It was only supposed to be a small party with 3 girls and 3 guys. Leigh and her boyfriend decided to go get some Boone’s Farm. Unbeknownst to me, they also went by Green’s Corners which was the hangout spot and put the word out that there was a party. Back at the house, I began to wonder where they had gotten off too. I looked out the front door and my jaw dropped to the floor. The longest line of cars that I had ever seen in my entire life that was not part of a funeral procession was coming down the road in our nice new neighborhood. People started filling into our home. I didn’t know what to do. I was 16 years old. There were people from 4 of the surrounding schools 2 of the schools were major rivals. There were 150 people in my parents new home. Things were out of control so bad that at one point I started to call my parents. The police came out twice. The third time everyone was asked to leave. The house was destroyed. I feared for my life.
My friends and I tried to fix what we were able. We nailed down the carpet back to the stairs that led to the upper level. We were able to find the covers to the fire alarm people had taken off the walls. I had tried to find them all night. You could hear them going off all through the house that night. We cleaned the white carpet. You can’t clean the cigarette burns from the carpet. Nor, did we have enough know how to fix the hole in the wall in my sisters bedroom. We placed a picture over the hole.
Having flown to Hilton Head Airport, I caught a cab to the beach house. The trip to Hilton Head was the longest trip. The cab ride alone seemed to go on forever. I didn’t have the guts to tell them there……….. and this is where I will end this post. I think I will call my mom and thank her for allowing me to live…… : )
0.000000
0.000000
40something 