One of my favorite give-mom-a-heart-stopping-breathtaking-moment stunts I loved to pull was climbing to the tippy-top of the huge old oak tree in our backyard, poke my head out of the top, wave and yell, “Look mom…no hands!” Seriously, this tree was taller than our two-story house, and I could scale that thing better than any monkey. The funniest thing was that every time I did this, she reacted the same way: she would frantically try to look up the tree from the ground, yell my whole name (middle name included), then an obscenity or two, order me down this instant and threaten me with the paddle. I would look down at her from my perch and then start rattling the branches back and forth while I pretended to lose my footing and shout that I was going to fall and die right before her very eyes and wouldn’t she be so sad that her last words to me were so mean (I know, I ought to be ashamed). Inevitably, she would soften and beg me lovingly to come down. That’s all I wanted – attention and ambivalence (two things every child craves).
Attention-whore that I was (am), I was constantly trying to outdo my last feat. It was like I spent my days deliberately trying to concoct my next antic (I was shrewd, after all). These concocting schemes, of course, consumed a lot of my mental energy, therefore rendering me quite useless with other, more mundane tasks such as walking and chewing gum at the same time or even a simple bike ride. Mundane rhymes with insane and I don’t play that game (although I do like other games). I liked (like) to shake things up from time to time.
One time, I coaxed Slinky sis to try climbing the tree with me. She was the next oldest, so she was usually right behind me in everything I did anyhow. Partners in crime, her and I. Anyhow, she was little-miss-accident-prone (started with the Slinky and never stopped), but I never once had fallen out of that tree, so at first, I never thought that she would fall (I should just say I never thought). But then, I had a change of heart: “What if she did fall and break her neck? God, I would be in SO much trouble and probably have to push her around in a wheelchair FOREVER.” I couldn’t have that, so I offered to stay down on the ground while she climbed the tree, and if she fell, I would catch her. Nice plan. Brilliant. My best yet!
Needless to say, she didn’t make it but twenty feet up, before her clumsy ass missed a branch, and she came flying down. I quickly forgot the plan to catch her and watched her very un-gracefully fall and land smack on her back right at my feet. I stood in dumbfounded awe (I was/am good at that). She didn’t move, or even breathe, for a few seconds as she stared blankly up at me, and I back at her. My mind flashed to the wheelchair and how now she was going to get all the freakin’ attention just because of her incompetence (what a witch, right?).
It took a moment, but my right emotion eventually kicked in and I started to feel bad for her and bent to help her, when suddenly, she caught her breath and screamed bloody murder (she learned from the best – I taught her that), and pregnant-again mom came running. Slinky sis still couldn’t move, but she could sure rat, and she shrieked to mom that I dared her to climb up the tree and I taunted her until she would do it (just a little). Of course, I was busted because I was the oldest and should have known better, blah, blah, blah…
I knew the drill well: go sit in the middle of my room until my father got home. Funny thing was, dad was much more lenient than mom, so waiting for him was like a walk in the park compared to dealing with the momster. I actually had a lot of time to come up with some really good, believable stories while I was up there, too. I really should have been a lawyer, because I could (can) debate/argue my way out of just about anything – especially with him. He was putty in my hands.
In the end, Slinky sis ended up not being crippled, or even breaking anything (expect a branch or two on the way down). She was just being overly dramatic (don’t know where she got that), and wanted to be the attention-whore that day (week actually, she really milked it). I let her have it as I knew my turn would come again soon. After all, I’d had plenty of time to plot my next move…
