Photo credit: The Lady

My Real Memoir: Confessions of an Eight-Year-Old Prankster

One of the advantages of living on a busy street (ours was the main route through the neighborhood) is that there’s a never-ending supply of drivers in need of something to liven up their day. Like, say, being pranked by an eight-year-old.

Our little SoCal suburb was still wet with afterbirth. But it had been built on the site of an old Spanish land-grant. So, even though our spray-stuccoed ranch home was new, the olive tree in our front yard had probably been planted by Zorro himself. The tree produced big purple olives, which were crunchy and bitter. But…

Not long after we moved in, Jeff-and-Rory and I discovered that if you squeezed them enough, they turned into juice-balloons! And even after a light toss they would produce a spectacular violet explosion upon hitting, say, a car window. I know, you’re thinking, “Neato!” Right? Well, so did we!

So We Started Hiding in the Bushes…

…and lobbing our little homemade grenades at passing cars. When one hit home, there would be a big, purple splat, and the car would screech to a halt. Then the driver would leap out, and yell, “You %&$@)*#?-ing kids!”

We’d just reached the end of a gleefully misbehaving week, when my mom opened the front door, turned into June Cleaver, and shouted, “Come in and wash up for dinner!” Then she saw what we were doing. There must have been some hint of moral conviction in my pre-manly breast, for when she welcomed me in, whispering, “Wait ’til your father gets home!” I thought, Why didn’t she call Rory in instead? Rory had opted not to throw olives (not because he was the perfect child, but because he had a Charles Dickens-ishly cruel stepfather).

But then, it struck me, “She didn’t call Rory in because she’s my mom, not his. And nothing, even the fact that I’d committed heinous crimes, could change that. Interestingly, this realization didn’t result in a torrent of bad behavior. In fact, it had the opposite effect. I did other wicked things, of course, but I never threw olives at cars again. On some subliminal level, it seems, I realized that living with Mommandad was a gift. And it made me want to do better, not worse. (Years later, recalling that moment would result in a rather significant adult ephiphany.)

Of course, there’d still be hell to pay when Dad got home.

Dad Spanked Me

But not very hard (he was no Uncle Larry). Plus, he was trying not to grin the whole time. A cleft would eventually open between us. But at that moment, I felt like Dad got me, even identified with me. Especially when, after explaining the dangers of causing a mini-carmageddon, he said, “There are harmless pranks, you know.” Then he told me about how when he was a kid, they’d tie a length of fishing line to a wallet, stick a dollar bill half-way out of it, and place it in the middle of the street. At dinner, Dad furtively slipped me an old wallet he wasn’t using.

The Wallet Trick was way better than Olive Grenades! We’d watch drivers slow down, and occasionally get out and reach for the wallet. Then we’d slowly pull it away. Some would actually follow it before realizing what was happening, and sheepishly hurry back to their car. One guy, stomped on the wallet, took the money, and yelled, “You lose!” But another guy laughed, shouted, “You got me!” and threw down a $10 bill!

Which I proudly showed Dad that evening.