I was in 1st grade and we were living in Quantico, VA. Another base house. Brick on the outside. Nothing fancy inside. I remember the dirt was like red clay, there were woods, old appliances, hardwood floors.
One day my sister dared me to go into the living room, spin around in circles and say, "fuck" over and over and over again. As I mentioned in a previous entry, dare me to do something and it's a given that I'm going there. So I march out, stand in the middle of the living room, and spin in circles while saying "fuck" repeatedly for my audience. One person. My dad. Anne thought it was the funniest thing that ever happened. Ever. But I didn't. Especially when I saw the look on his face. Both of us were in deep trouble, and that was the day I learned that fuck was a bad word.
Maybe my dad was just fed up, because shortly after that incident, I, Anne, and a bunch of friends went woods exploring and came upon a fallen tree that stretched all the way across a steep, wide ravine. It looked like a bridge, but without any guard rails and a lot less safe. So, what better to do than get in a line and cross it one by one? None of us was brave enough to start walking over, so it was gonna' be a scoot to get to the other side. Seemed easy enough.
One at a time I watched people bravely go in front of me. I wasn't about to say anything, but I was scared out of my wits to get on that log. I've always been incredibly afraid of heights, so there's no way this was helping. But I didn't want to get made fun of, so I scooted on. Last. And everyone was dry humping their way easily to the other side. Scoot. Scoot. Scoot. Don't look down. Scoot. Scoot. Then, I hit a huge bump in the log that required serious leapfrogging if I was going to clear it. What if I overdid it and went over the side of the log? If I fell, would I die?
Everyone, safely on the other side now, cheered me on - telling me I could do it, I could do it. What did they know? They weren't inside my frozen body on the middle of that log. I couldn't go forward and I certainly couldn't go backwards. I was screwed. I started to cry. I was completely helpless and yelled to Anne to go get dad.
"GO ... GET ... DAD!!" I screeched like a mad howler monkey.
She took off like a bat outta' hell, running for my ultimate rescue.
I waited. I cried. I waited. I was frozen. And who shows up? Not my knight in shining armor. My mom. My 105 pound, 5'2" mom. How in the hell was I going to fall off that log into my mother's arms? I would have flattened her like a potato latke. Only one person deserved to be injured by stupidity and that was me. But my mom wouldn't have it. She totally freaked out, and before I could say, "stop! Don't!" She dry humped her little self out onto that log to get me. I thought, "whew. Rescue on the way. Finally going to get off this thing."
And then she got stuck right behind me. She was too scared to catapult over that bump in the log, too. Not me - the actual bump in the log in front of me. At least someone knew where I was coming from. If I remember correctly, my mom might have started crying, too... Maybe it was over her poor decision to follow that of her daughter's poor decision.
Again, Anne ran back to get my dad. Our knight in shining armor. But she came back empty handed.
"Dad says you got yourselves into this mess, so you can get yourselves out of it."
There was also a good football game on, I think.
I was horrified. Mom was pissed. Dad always liked to tease and make fun, but he obviously had no idea how serious the situation had become or his butt would have been out of that house in an instant. I could actually feel the heated anger radiating off my mom's chest into my back, which kind of soothed my panic a little.
"WELL, GO GET THE NEIGHBOR!!" Mom screamed, ruining my few seconds of peace.
Anne was off like a shot once again, running for our rescue.
This time she came back with a neighbor. A guy. I have no idea what his name was, but he saved us that day. First, he coaxed my mom into taking a leap of faith off the log, and he caught her. She was safe. Next, they both shouted to me to do the same.
"Uh uh!! No!!" I clung to the log like it was a life preserver in a violent sea. I just sat there. I couldn't move. Even if I wanted to fling myself off, I couldn't.
"Well, we're just going to have to leave you here then. It's going to be dark soon and you'll be all alone out here in the woods. Stuck on a log. Unable to see. Do you really think you can sleep on tha-----"
THWOOOOOMP!
I fell off, right into his fleshy arms. I was safe.
My dad, on the other hand, wasn't. I never told my mom, but I hope she punished him severely as only a wife can.
Even to this day, decades later (what a scary thing to say), we still give him a hard time when we think back on it. Had he had it to do all over again, though, he still would do the exact same thing he did that day. He let us fend for ourselves, but I bet somewhere within he was sweatin'.
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