Pull my finger

My referral logs tell me someone landed here wanting to know what animal was called the "ship of the desert". This is what he got. Then again, the way kids seem to be today, he'll have to ask the teacher what "seamen" are.

Perhaps there lives someone so innocent that they never put a little kid up to something obnoxious. Wimps! Not me.

My greatest single accomplishment was probably teaching some younger relatives (both girls, around 2 and 4) how to blow their noses without a handkerchief. Their mother had fun breaking them of that. Heh heh. In my defense, I was only about 13 myself.

I wasn't through yet. Another relative had sisters in high school, and he'd wind up talking to their many suitors. Seeking to help in raising a fine young gentleman, I gave him examples of things he shouldn't say, like "she's taking a huge nasty dump right now". How he survived to adulthood I'll never know.

And that's not even counting the stuff I put myself up to. Did you know you can build a fire in a commode?

So I must be carrying some heavy karmic baggage, eh? Oh no - one of the girls above got me back in spades.

I was told that she wanted to have 3 girls I knew stay overnight with her. Oh yeah, their boyfriends would be visiting too. I was going to be there chaperoning anyway, and nobody was leaving, so could I get them some ingredients for some frozen daiquiris? Trusting soul that I was, I took her at her word and got a bottle of rum and some frozen strawberries.

Hah! - think "Risky Business", only with free sex. Every kid from that end of the county must have shown up at their country home at one time or another that night, and their huge yard was covered with perhaps 40 cars. Terrific - I figured I'd be meeting the sheriff any minute.

Well, there was only one bottle, right? No, these kids had their own stuff, and the next day when I rousted the scheming princesses to help clean up, we gathered 7 huge yard bags full of beer cans and other containers.

I'm dealing with this the best I can, walking around, trying to keep the bedrooms empty and the john running. I didn't have to put out any fires, but the hordes did manage to break a door.

One girl I'd never seen before grabbed me and led me outside to a kid who had passed out. This was when I discovered that the debauchery inside the house was just the tip of the iceberg. Recovering my composure, I stood him up, shoved my finger down his throat as far as it would go and let Nature take its course. She held him while he barfed a regular Hawaiian sunset, then he straightened up and went back to drink some more.

It finally ended, with no fights, no known physical harm or conceptions, no DUIs or car wrecks and no visits from the law. Actually in retrospect it was kind of comforting to see how the kids looked after each other, but it wasn't anything I cared to repeat.

Anyway, on the whole I figure I'm on the good side of karma with this. And what do you know? - the girl who got me good above is now married with kids of her own...