Cleaning Out My Closet

This post is for my very patient and accepting parents. This is an apology and a coming clean post. I have decided I want to be more honest and I figured telling my parents all the things that really happened while I was growing up in their home was a good place to start. (That, and I hope the statute of limitations has expired on all of this.) Now Mom and Dad, if you want to keep believing that I am your perfect little angel and that I have never done anything wrong then quit reading now. I must warn you, what follows is not for the faint of heart. Lets begin.

Concerning Vehicles...

Do you remember the Ford Club Wagon 15-seater van and the time you asked me about the sunken in roof with the shoe marks? I told you that we had gotten up there to watch fireworks. Well that wasn't the real truth. The truth is, we were very fond of van surfing and we did it a lot. We even had angry neighbors come out and yell at us as we drove down their street with Jed surfing on top. Sometimes we would go to a big parking lot and I would put the van in drive and let it idle while I would climb out and surf with the guys. When this got boring (and because we were in a parking lot) we started getting into shopping carts and pushing each other around in them using the van to push (you could go faster that way). And that is the real way the Ford symbol on the front grill of the van was broken off. People didn't steal it while we were at the football game. Oh, and the sliding door didn't fall off because I hit a curb. We found a steep hill that had a lot of level apartment parking spaces and we discovered that if you drove close enough to the end of the spaces the van would bounce a lot and it was fun (until the vans sliding door track broke and the door fell off.) Speaking of bouncing, do you remember I told you again that I had hit a curb and that is what had caused my bent axle on the Toyota Corolla? Again, not true. Behind Inkleys in the parking lot on Holliday Blvd there is a big bump in the transition of parking lots. We could get up to about 50 mph, hit that thing, and get lots of air. Duke sat on the ground once (not under the car) and said that we could have easily cleared him. We measured from the divot in the ground from the engine to the edge of the jump and it was around 50 feet. I think the axle got bent the time we went over the jump with 6 people in the car. I guess that little old hatch back couldn't handle all of the weight. This one is just negligence, I didn't really put oil in that 3rd engine that seized even though I told you I had. I'm sure you knew that though. Also, that missing cover over the gear shift in the Datsun Station Wagon was removed on purpose so we could drop fire crackers and bottle rockets (and garbage) through to the outside of the car with out being detected. It would have been more noticeable if we had dropped all of that stuff out the window. Now the truck that had its engine catch on fire really was because of the A.C. wires. Not my fault.

Concerning nighttime activities...

You probably know that I snuck out at night a lot because I wasn't the sneakiest person in the world, but this is what we were doing. Most of the time I would sneak out my window and meet up with Auggie, Duke, and Oonie and walk to Macey's to get Monkey bars. Sometimes we would go toilet papering. In fact, I don't know if you remember the Jarvis's, but we toilet papered them 5 nights in a row (even on school nights). We would get the toilet paper from random public restrooms. Yes, I was a little bit of a thief, but more on that later. We ended up stopping the TPing because the son started sleeping out in their boat with a gun. Which reminds me, one night when I was trying to sneak back in, dad was out in the garage with the door wide open so I couldn't get in. Misty-dog came running across the street barking at me behind the bush and then to my good fortune, dad called her back, closed the garage door and went inside. The mysterious part is, that as soon as I shut my window, dad went back outside, re-opened the garage door, and resumed whatever he had been doing. Dad, did you do that just so I could get back in the house? If so, thanks. Do you remember the time I was supposed to be spending the night at my friend's house, but you opened the door at 2 in the morning to find me asleep on the doorstep? I tried to make it seem like I had slept walk home? Well we were supposed to be going to do something crazy, but no one was going to be able to make it, so that was my way of getting back in the house. (I never said I was the smartest kid.) On that one night that Jed and I slept in the Toyota Corolla we told you we had been at work at Godfather's that night when we got the flat tire so we slept there until we could call someone. We actually got the flat tire while we were driving around trying to steal a "Duck Crossing" street sign (Bryce-a-Roni said he would give us $50 dollars if we could get him one). We then drove to the Godfather's to sleep in the car and validate our story. Now, the thievery. I never stole anything that was in someone's home, or shoplifted, or anything like that...in fact, I can tell you everything I have ever stolen. I once stole a picture of two kids in karate outfits that looked like they had just hit their heads together. It was hanging in front of an entire Karate class who all saw me take it except for the instructor (we were there waiting for the country dance to start). I also stole a chair from the top floor of "The Bay" country dance club by taking it down to the second floor and then dropped it out the bathroom window. And, last but not least, that "Stop" sign that was in my room forever, the one that you kept telling me to take back, I told you we found it on the ground. We did find it, but we found it in a hospital parking lot.

Concerning house destruction...

I think I already told you most of this, but just in case...One time little Steven S. and I thought it would be fun to see what a hacky sack would look like on fire. So, we got a cup of gasoline (from the lawn mower gas can), pored it onto the hacky, and lit it. Our first problem was we did this on the front porch, and the second problem was we had a full cup of gasoline which of course caught on fire too. I panicked, and in an attempt to put it out, I tipped the cup over which of course spread the fire. I then proceeded to try and stomp the fire out with my foot. Once again, big mistake. As I stomped, my foot got gasoline on it and started my shoe on fire. Now the house and my shoe was on fire and I have to say I became more concerned for my foot. So in order to put the fire out on my foot, I start to kick the fence, which of course spread the fire to the fence. Luckily for everyone, there was actually no damage to the house on this occasion despite the flames reaching as high as the second story roof before we got the house out and smothered it. I decided I should spend more time indoors and the best thing to do indoors is to watch T.V., and I wanted to do it in my room. But how? Once I figured out how to hook up an old VCR to my computer, I needed to get cable. So, I drilled a whole through my ceiling and your floor, bought a cable divider, and voila, I had cable. Before that I had to revert to more primitive methods. Mom, do you remember that big hole in the wall that I told you was my wall safe? Well, it was that too, but it was also where I watched T.V. in the living room after I had already gone to bed. You see, on the other side of that wall void I poked a hole and then put some Spackle on the head of a nail so when I wasn't watching T.V. I could put the nail back and you wouldn't be able to see the hole. The hole on my side of the wall did keep getting bigger because I couldn't get the edges straight, but also so more of my head could fit into the hole, getting my eye closer to the peep hole. Anyway, all of the other holes were just from me and my friends punching the wall. I am really sorry about that.

Concerning my personal health...

Speaking of punching walls, I broke my hand twice (that you know about) punching walls at the church during basketball games. I actually did break my hand a third time (that you didn't know about) two days after getting my soft cast off. But I didn't want to get the metal plate in my hand that the doctor said I would need if I broke it again. So, I knelt on my hand to set it and place the cast I already had back on. That is why I ended up wearing that one so long. And dad, the cut in my leg that I stitched up by myself happened on one of those nights I had snuck out. Big Bob S. was chasing me for some reason and I slipped under a parked car. Something under the car cut me. There isn't as many instances of me getting hurt as there really should be. I used to jump off of the bay window over hang, over the rose bushes and the sidewalk to land on the grass, but I never broke a leg or anything. But if I ever did get hurt, you could rest assured (or unassured) that Jed was right there to stitch me up.

Wow, it feels really good to have that off my chest finally. I have been carrying around that guilt with me for a long time, some of it as much as 15 years. I really hope this doesn't change your image of my sweet and innocent nature. I look at it as if I was only doing research on the many different ways that my children might try to get away with some stuff and hopefully now I have a little bit of a head start. I am sure there are many more things I have done or lied about that I can't think of now, and I want to apologize for those as well. You two are really the best parents I could have ever had. I love you guys. (Oh, and after tallying all of this up, I figure I owe you around $28,536.47. Someday I will pay you back, I promise)