"Growing Up Grounded"

My mother was a freak'n lunatic that could crush you mentally and verbally a bazillion different ways. When I was a kid she was the meanest MoFo in the valley. She had looks that could knock the wind out of you.

When I saw the movie The Exorcist for the first time I was the only one in the room not scared.

When I was grounded, not allowed to go out, she would find exotic jobs for me to do. Things like picking dandelions out of the lawn, weeding the garden , since we didn't have a garden this meant pulling weeds around the landscaping, sweeping and washing the driveway and my all time favorite dusting each book in the bookcases. When I was really young I had to sit in a chair in the livingroom and read for hours. Doesn't sound bad but 8,9,10 years old and no t.v. on a Saturday morning meant no Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy or Sky King.

Naturally she would ground me for anything. By the time I was 16 I had been grounded for everything short of murder. Which I had contemplated.

The number one best grounding had to be the time she grounded me for getting wet in the rain! No shit!

I was a sophomore in high school when this happened. A friend and I had gone to the movies downtown and we had taken the city bus back to my house. It had been raining all day. The bus stop was less than a block from my house so we ran as fast as we could.

We took off our coats and shoes in the hallway before entering the kitchen - standard protocol.

She saw us and snarled,"You boys too stupid to get in out of the rain?"

My friend froze in place but this was cake for me, " No Ma, we're inside."

" Oh yea smart mouth you're grounded," she said.

We had a party to go to that night ," For what? Getting wet in the rain?", I asked.

"O.K.", she responded and told us to get upstairs and put on some dry clothes.

I was pissed! I wanted to go to that party!

This was the first time that I decided to rebel. Besides what could she do - ground me?

That night around 8 p.m., I put four albums on the stereo. This would make them think that we were upstairs listening to records.

At the top of the stairs there is a window over looking the garage. We opened it, climbed out and then jumped to the lawn at the back of the garage. Off to the party we went.

Technically, I think I'm still grounded.