By way of explanation, I thought it better to write something every day, but to post complete stories. My goal of writing daily remains, I just might not post that often to avoid to avoid confusion and frustration for those infrequent visitors to this little blog that time forgot.
I call this one "Wiped Clean"
The arsenal of the ultimate pre-teen prankster is very versatile. Mine consisted of a sleeping bag, a trampoline, newspapers, garbage bags, and toilet paper. While these were my favorite weapons, my prankster mind was always open to new munitions and methods.
It was the summer of 1982, and Conner Clarkson was my friend again. I think he must have been obsessive compulsive about even numbers, because he only needed me around when the head count in his posse dropped to an odd number of one. At the moment, Taylor Smith and I were counted as his closest friends, Ricky Peterson having done something to cause a rift in the relationship which left him out of the circle. It was that rift that led Conner to announce his intentions towards Ricky on one sunny Friday morning.
“Guys, tonight we are going to toilet paper Ricky’s house, and I want to hit it hard, quiet, and fast.” Conner declared, as if Ricky’s house were a German U-boat pen on the coast of France and we where resistance saboteurs.
Taylor and I listened as Conner continued. “We’re gonna throw shredded newspaper all over their yard, wrap their bushes, and cover their trees in tp. They’ll wake up to a real mess, and Ricky will have to clean it all up, right after he milks their stupid cows. Man, farmer-boy will be so pissed off!” He was giddy at the image of Ricky on his knees in the grass, picking up the mess that we would leave behind.
“Don’t you think he’ll know it was us? I mean, you two have hated each other for the past week, so you are the first person he would think of.” Taylor’s tone suggested that Conner was a total idiot, which in retrospect he was.
“I don’t care, we’ll lie if he says it was us. If we don’t get caught in the act, then what can they do? They won’t be able to prove that we did it, what are they gonna do, finger-print the toilet paper?” Conner had a point, although his argument was one that gets turns most would-be pranksters into the real thing.
“Okay, but if we get caught it’s your fault.” I said, as if that would solve all the complications that would rear up into my life were I to be caught toilet-papering someone’s house.
“So, let’s all go home and collect what we need, then meet back here at my house to prepare and plan. Swipe as much TP as you can, and newspapers too.” Conner dismissed us with these orders, and I ran home to collect what I could.
Once home, I grabbed my sleeping bag and rolled it out onto the floor of my bedroom. I stuffed my pillow, a flashlight, a book, and my dark blue Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt inside, then made a quiet trip to the bathroom. I closed and locked the door, then turned on the water to mask any noise the cupboard doors might make as I opened them to rummage through the bathroom supplies in search of toilet paper. There were only two rolls, and I took both of them back to my room, stuffing them into my sleeping bag. I knew I would need more than that for a successful raid on Ricky’s house, so headed upstairs to the linen closet. This was a great risk, because my mother roamed the upstairs of our home freely throughout the day, going about her duties as the mother of six. As I shoved aside bottles of cough medicine, boxes of band-aids, and piles of washcloths in pursuit of white gold, a large glass jar of petroleum jelly, having been pushed to the edge of the shelf by my heavy-handed search, fell on my head.
“Ouch! Stupid Vaseline!” I picked up the jar, angry at it for having smacked my skull as hard as it did. I held it in my hand, deciding what punishment would be appropriate for causing me such pain.
In my anger I decided to sneak the jar, along with three more rolls of toilet paper, down to my room. I crammed them into my bag with the rest of my loot and headed out the back door and over to Conner’s house.
“What can we do in Ricky’s yard with a huge jar of Vaseline?” Taylor wondered aloud.
“I don’t know, I just grabbed it in case it came in handy.” I replied.
“What are we gonna do, drop big blobs of it all over their the lawn? Conner laughed.
“We could smear it on their mailbox, so the handle is all gooey.” I offered.
“Hey, that might be cool! The mailman would be grossed out because he would think it was snot or something.” Taylor chimed in.
I felt justification settle over me, and with it came sudden inspiration.
“I know, we can smear it on their windows and throw handfuls of confetti at them! The confetti will stick, making a big mess for Ricky to clean up.” I folded my arms and smiled at my sudden and devious spark of genius.
“Yes, but let’s do it to the windows of their stupid station wagon. I hate that car, and besides, we might wake somebody up if we touch the house windows.” Conner decided. “Now let’s get busy with the newspapers, I want to fill at least three garbage bags, one for each of us.”
We spent the rest of the day sitting on the lawn, tearing newspapers into small strips of confetti and stuffing it all into the garbage bags. By dinnertime our hands were black with newsprint, but our spirits were high because we had reached our goal of three full bags. After stashing the rotten fruits of our labor we broke for dinner, each of us returning to our homes for an hour before meeting once again at Conner’s house. We spent the evening in his basement, watching TV, drinking Dr. Pepper, and playing Atari. Long after the sun disappeared, we moved outside to the trampoline with sleeping bags and garbage bags in tow.
For the next few hours we jumped on the trampoline, rode our bikes up and down the street, and eventually settled down in our bags to wait for go time. We chatted away quietly as lights went out all over the neighborhood. Just after one in the morning, we decided it was time to strike. We donned our dark clothing, gathered up our arsenal, and headed up the road towards Ricky’s farmhouse. Six minutes later we were laying in the ditch across the road from our target. We surveyed the scene for several minutes, watching for movement inside the house. The windows were dark, the only sign of life the occasional moo of a cow.
“It’s go time.” Whispered Conner. He stood and began to walk across the road.
Taylor and I followed, and together the three of us began our assault. We dropped our bags and from them pulled roll upon roll of toilet paper, stacking them into three separate pyramids in the driveway. I placed the jar of Vaseline beside my pyramid, then armed myself with a roll of generic white. There was only one tree in the front yard, but it was a big one with plenty of branches to drape. I peeled back the first square and rolled out a long veil, then tossed my paper grenade into the air. It soared with a soft rustle, hit the uppermost leaves of the tree, and pin-balled its way down through the limbs, dropping onto the ground below. I rushed over with a smile and scooped it up, and without tearing the paper, tossed it into the air once again. Taylor and Conner had done the same as I, but being bigger and stronger than I, they had both thrown their rolls over the top of the tree, bringing it down cleanly to the other side.
“Don’t throw it over the top like that, it won’t get as tangled in the branches, and it will be easier to get off the tree.” I whispered.
“Shut up! You’ll wake somebody!” Conner hissed back.
“Fine, do it your way.” I scoffed under my breath. No point in starting a fight about proper toilet-papering technique at the risk of waking up Ricky’s family.
Within three minutes, the tree was coated in white, and we soon made quick work of the bushes. Mine were the best, because I took great care to weave the paper in and out of the branches to make more of a tangled mess of it. Taylor and Conner, I had decided, were amateur pranksters, happy to wait for the movie rather than read the book. From the bushes we moved on to the confetti.
“Be sure to save enough for the car windows.” I reminded my two inadequate accomplices. They waved me off, eager to dump great clumps of confetti into the grass, instead of spreading it out in a fine layer of trouble on the ground. I took my bag and my time, coating the lawn evenly with my share. When the weight of the bag felt about right, it was time for the final insult; I ran over and grabbed the jar of Vaseline, then headed over to the station wagon parked in the carport.
“We need to get some toilet paper for spreading this around, we don’t want it all over our hands.” I whispered to anyone who would listen, without caring much if they did. I grabbed a length of paper from a nearby bush and wrapped my right hand with it, then pulled the lid from the jar and scooped out a large glob of Vaseline. I handed the jar to Conner and began to coat the windshield with a thick film of goo. It took less than a minute for the three of us to cover every inch of glass on the car. Taylor tossed the empty jar into a bush, and we set about sticking handfuls of confetti to the sticky mess we had just made.
We stepped back to review the results of our efforts. It had taken a mere seven minutes to turn the Peterson’s tidy front yard into a disaster zone. Paper hung about from the trees and bushes in long white trails, shredded paper covered the lawn, and the family wagon looked like a piñata made at the arts and crafts table in the basement of a mental asylum.
“Wait, I think it needs just one more thing.” I whispered, then ran across the yard.
Earlier, while carefully spreading confetti about the lawn, I had seen a sprinkler and hose. I dragged the sprinkler over to the center of the mess we had made, then ran my hand along the hose, following it back to its source at the house. I twisted the handle slowly so it wouldn’t squeak and wake anyone that might be sleeping on the other side of the wall. Water flowed through the hose, and I could hear the sprinkler spit and gurgle as it began to soak the lawn around it. Satisfied that the range of the sprinkler was sufficient to cause a major headache for Ricky come morning, I joined Conner and Taylor across the street. From there we admired our handiwork for a moment, then made our way back to the trampoline with muffled giggles in our throats and wicked smiles on our lips. Before long we were snuggled in our sleeping bags and the need for sleep overcame the happy satisfaction of a successful raid.
“Wake up boys, it’s time to clean up the mess you made in my yard!” A solid, fierce tone accompanied the grip that shook me awake.
I moaned at being rousted from my sleep, and pulled the bag from my head to shout at Conner for waking me with such a stupid joke. I was alert in an instant, as through the low light of dawn my blurry eyes focused on Ricky’s mom, wrapped in her bathrobe, her strong hand now shaking Taylor as she repeated herself.
“Wake up boys, it’s time to clean up the mess you made in my yard!”
“What do you mean, what mess?” Conner asked, but his tone was meek and telling.
“Don’t you lie to me young man, I know it was you three that came into my yard last night and made that mess, and you are going to clean it up right now.” She wasn’t yelling, but her voice left no room for me to argue. I was frightened just looking at her, with her wild, grey hair and weathered, make-up free face.
She turned and walked away in the direction of her home. The three of us lay there in amazed and troubled confusion as she disappeared around the corner of Conner’s house. What had just happened? Had we just been called out by Ricky’s mom?
“What are we gonna do?” I asked, knowing full well I would soon be cleaning it up. The fear of parental retribution was a constant in my life, and I was already hoping that were I to clean up the mess in the Peterson’s yard, Ricky’s mom wouldn’t tell my parents.
“I’m going back to sleep. What can she do?” Conner declared, pulling his bag back over his head.
“We can’t, she knows it was us, and she’ll tell our parents. I don’t know about your dad, but my dad will kill me if he finds out what we did to her yard, and then he’ll kill me again for what we did to her car!” I whined.
“How do you know she won’t tell them anyway? She may be calling them right now.” Taylor countered, and at the thought I turned to look at my house, half expecting the front door to fly off its hinges and into the yard.
“Even if she does, at least we can say that we cleaned it up right away when she asked. Then my dad won’t kill me, he’ll only ground me for the whole summer.” I offered.
Conner lay still inside his bag, while Taylor stared into the sky. After a moment I said, “I am going to clean it up with or without you.” I slid out of my bag and pulled on my shoes.
By the time I got to Ricky’s yard, Taylor and Conner were with me, having considered the situation and decided that mine was the only course of action that made any sense. Leaning against the station wagon piñata were two rakes, and on the ground next to them were rags, windows cleaner, and some garbage bags. We set about the work that we had intended for Ricky. It was harder than we had imagined, and what had been created in a matter of minutes took well over an hour to dismantle. The rake tore at the soggy newspaper, and while we were able to gather a great amount of it into a bag, the better portion of it remained, a grey pulpy mulch clinging to the wet grass. My handiwork with the bushes made for difficult removal as planned, and when it came to the tree we had to climb up into the upper limbs to free much of the toilet paper.
We had saved the station wagon for last, knowing it would be the worst. Using handfuls of wadded tissue, we were able to scrape away most of the paper and Vaseline, but a slippery, opaque film remained. We used the entire bottle of glass cleaner and every rag available to us for the job, but the windows remained somewhat cloudy. We were standing around wondering what to do about it when the front door creaked open.
“Come on inside boys.” Ricky’s mom called through the screen door. She disappeared back into the house, and we shuffled our way over to the house. The screen door slammed behind me as we crowded nervously into the entry way, unsure of what Ricky’s mother had planned for us. Visions of hogs, troughs, manure, and teats flew through my tired head.
My stomach growled at the smells of a farmer’s breakfast. I strained my neck to peer into the adjacent dining room. The table was covered in food; pancakes, bacon, eggs, juice, toast, sausage, they mocked us as we stood and awaited our fate. As if on cue, Ricky, his brother, and his father filed into the dining room from the back porch, each of them taking a seat at the table. Conner, Taylor, and I stood in the front doorway, three mute idiots on display.
Boys, come on in, sit down, and have some breakfast.” Ricky’s mom beckoned sweetly with one hand as she rounded the corner from the kitchen with a clear glass pitcher of what turned out to be fresh, warm milk. Her grey hair was tamed and brushed, her bathrobe replaced by jeans and a flannel shirt.
We sulked our way over to the table, still unsure of what was happening. We sat, a dubious puzzlement ruling our every move. I fully expected the screaming to start at any moment. Instead, Ricky’s mother sat and offered a prayer over the meal. As we dug in to that perfect pile of food, I offered up my own silent prayer that my dad would never hear of what had happened that morning. He never did.
*In the past 90 days I have learned that:*
1. I can!
2. (Some) good food can be good tasting.
3. Moderation is not a self-inflicted punishment, more does...
