Shenanigans

It was while living in this house that we had all kinds of crazy fun. Some of our Shenanigans included:


1) Toilet Papering. These days you can get sent to jail for it. Back then, when the concept was new, it was a fun prank that you played on people you loved. And then you went back in the morning and helped them clean it up. At least, that's the way we always saw it. In fact, my mom herself is the one who provided the toilet paper, and even took us out and helped throw the rolls around! We had a lot of fun. We went toilet papering every time we had sleep overs. Like I said, we always showed up in the morning to help clean it up. Then one day, somehow my mom found out that it was against the law, or at least a very socially unacceptable, hooliganish thing to do, so that was the end of that. Because we really didn't mean for it to be rude.


2) We had this tree in front of our house that was great for climbing. The coolest thing about it was that you could climb right up and onto the roof. I don't remember doing that a lot, but definitely a handful of times. One day my best friend Karie and I climbed up, and walked over to the top of the carport, which was lower and allowed us to hide under the eave of the roof to the house. We went there to talk and plan, and to be away from all our siblings while we were at it. (Karie lived at the other end of Meadow Drive, so we always had siblings around, no matter whose house we went to). This rooftop spot is where we planned our Parent Trap campout, and various other sleep overs, that always included movie rentals and junk food.


3) This one is a not so funny shenanigan. One day this girl came over when my parents weren't home. I don't remember at all who she was. She could have been a neighbor kid that I didn't really ever play with, or she could have been a girl that followed me home from school or something. Either way, we had not made plans to play, and my parents weren't home so I did not let her in. Well, somehow she got in, and I didn't know it until crazy things started happening. I heard noise from my parents' bedroom, whooping and hollering, so I ran in there. When I got there, I saw raw egg running down the wall, and broken shells on the floor, but no sign of anyone. Then I'd hear a noise from somewhere else, and find a similar situation. Finally I guess she left, but I really had no idea what in the world was going on or how it was even happening, because I never actually saw her in my house. It was pretty bad business when my parents got home. I think that they believed me that I hadn't done it, and helped me piece together what had happened. I was so glad to not be the kind of kid that people would believe capable of that kind of mischief.


4) Not that I was perfect or anything. There was that time our parents weren't home and someone dared me to see if butter would stick to the ceiling. I'm pretty sure it was Sam, but I can't say for sure because I honestly don't remember. I didn't think it would, because butter is greasy. Looking back, it's unbelievable how it just absolutely didn't occur to me that throwing butter at the ceiling was a bad idea. Ugh! So I threw it. And it stuck. Let's just say that Mom and Dad were not happy with the situation. What made it worse is that it was one of those popcorn ceilings, so when my mom wiped the butter off, it took the popcorn with it, so we had a couple of glaring smooth spots on a ceiling that was not supposed to be smooth. Smooth and greasy spots.


5) This story goes that one day, when Dawn was really small, she climbed up the shelves of the pantry and found a number 10 can full of honey. For some reason, there was no lid on the can, but it was higher than her, so how did she know? Plus, she was little enough to not really care about a lid anyway. She ended up grabbing the can with both hands, and turning it upside down to see what was inside. Boy oh boy, did she see what was inside! Not only did she see it, she wore it!


6) Last but not least, this was Utah, so it would get cold and snowy in the winter. In our front yard, we had these hedges that  bordered the front where the yard met the street. Oh, the number of things that got tossed into the hedges and lost forever more! In the winter, the snow would fill the hedges, and it would all freeze. So, great adventurers that we were, we would climb up and walk all along the hedges. It was awesome, because it felt like every winter we got to get the best of those darned sticker bushes!