Just Another Day at my Father's House

I was a child of divorce.  Boo-hoo for me?  Nope.  It was kinda cool.  There was always something interesting happening.  My mom raised me, but we would visit with my father on many weekends and sometimes spend a week or more in the summer.  It was a completely different environment than the one at home.  The only similarity was that there was always a certain level of chaos at all times.

Being a kid at my dad's house was fun.  There was always minimal supervision and my younger brother was nothing short of a raging maniac.  He was the kid with tell-tale laugh that let you know you were probably in immediate danger.  His idea of fun was defying death at every moment possible.  The kid was scary.  Had it not been for the Candy Land box top that I used as a shield, I might have been dead from the time he tried stabbing me to death with a grill fork.  We were almost killed every weekend actually.  

Sometimes it would be the very joys of life that almost killed us.  Anyone who was ever a kid in a two story house has gotten on their belly and slid all the way down the stairs for fun.  We were no exception and the severe rug burn was well worth it.  This was especially fun when you lived in a Trenton row house where the stairs were so steep that it was more of a deluxe ladder than a flight of stairs.  My brother loved sliding down the stairs just as much as the next kid.  Probably more than the next kid actually.  He always added a little flair to his slides.  For instance, he would routinely slide while one of us was still trying to walk down.  You can't imagine the mix of shock and pain that comes from quietly descending the stairs one second and the very next second being swept air born by a 5 year old doing 90 mph under your feet.  That part is a joy compared to how it feels when you land - on your tailbone - and then proceed to tumble down another 9 steps.  The pain is secondary to getting the wind knocked out of you.  If you've never experienced this phenomenon - lucky you; it's not pleasant.

I'll never forget the fun we did have when we weren't staring death in the face.  This one time we pretty much defined the phrase "all hell breaking loose".  My Dad, Step mom and neighbors were sitting on the porch.  (That's what people in Trenton used to do every night before they had to fear being shot).  While they were on the porch, we took full advantage of the fact that we were not at all being supervised.  

My brother immediately hit the fridge.  He took out a piece of pizza and climbed onto the counter to put it in the microwave.  He was only about 5 years old, so he had to be crafty to reach things.  Lucky for him he was like a spider monkey and could scale anything.  When I saw him putting the pizza in the microwave, I repeated what I had been told before.  "Don't microwave pizza - it will make it like rubber."  Intrigued, he looked at me and said "rubber?" and I (shouldn't have) said "yea, like bouncy - you could bounce it off the wall!".  And so in the microwave it went - as he laughed his insane laugh the whole while.  I did nothing to stop him because it actually seemed like a fun time to me too.  I knew he would be the one getting in trouble for it, not me so what the hell, let's give it a go.  We had to find out if it was really true!  

We excitedly awaited the beep that signaled the pizza was done and our experiment could begin.  He grabbed the pizza out of the microwave and ran to the dining room so quickly I almost missed the whole thing.  As I ran in to witness, I saw the pizza hit the wall up near the ceiling - sauce side to the wall.  My brother almost couldn't take it.  He was laughing so hard I thought I was going to have to call for help.  We had hoped it would slide down the wall so we could get it before the parents caught us but it wasn't budging.  I had a great idea!  I got a water gun, filled it up and started shooting the wall above the slice.  My thinking was that this would rinse it down the wall.  I proved my theory as it slid down and landed sauce side down on the carpet.  That was a complication that I did not think of.  Nor did I think of the sauce streak that would remain down the wall.  All the water shooting I did trying to clean up the sauce just made it worse.  As I realized I was not going to fix this, my brother threw the pizza back onto the wall again.  I had no time to be concerned with any of this because I had another great idea!  

While my brother moved on to driving his Big Foot R/C truck around the house, I moved on to the kitchen for my next great plan.  I thought, in my infinite wisdom, that if I shoot out the ceiling fan in the kitchen enough with the water gun, the fan blades would be wet enough to simulate rain.  Great idea right??  It sure was NOT a great idea.  Within minutes I would learn why.  Meanwhile, my brother's R/C truck had moved on from driving around the house to "peeling out" on my sister's bare back.  As she screamed a horrific scream, I learned why squirting the ceiling fan was a bad idea.  If everyone did not know this, I will tell you that I've learned that cold water on hot light bulbs is a terrible combination.  The light bulbs exploded and I was sprayed with the broken glass.  I was bleeding from literally thousands of tiny cuts from head to toe.  

I'm not sure if it was my sister's blood curdling scream, the sound of the light bulbs exploding or if he just had to take a leak, but my father finally decided to come into the house.  When he walked in I don't think he could ever have been prepared for what he found.  It took him a few seconds for it to all register.  Finally he bellowed "What the F**K is going ON in here!!!!????"  As my father scanned the room, he found things that I guarantee no other house witnessed before.  In the living room my sister was still being attacked by a baby monster truck driven by my brother who was laughing while she screamed.  A big red stain on the carpet was below a dripping wall with a sauce streak and pizza slowly creeping down.  Then emerging from a dark kitchen there is me...squirt gun still in my hand, arms out and covered head to toe with specks of blood.  I guess I should refer back to these moments when I think my house is out of control.