I am actually a really, really good liar if I plan it out (but I don't lie much anymore), but sometimes I am so nervous during on the spot truth telling that people think I am covering.

Except I told my mother to go fuck herself.

A few years back I reminded my sister and mom about an argument they had back when sis was 16 or so (and in the middle of the Teen Years From Hell) which I witnessed but did not participate in (both of us sibs knew to stay clear of Mom and sis arguing). They were standing face to face, screaming at each other, and sis started sputtering, finally coming out with, "I'll tell Dad!!" Dad and Mom had been divorced for a few years by this point and we never brought him into arguments we had at the house, ever. So, after Mom came back with "Fine, tell him!", the argument sputtered out and Mom left to do whatever.

I then asked sis what the hell that reference to Dad was about, and she responded, "It was either that or 'Fuck you!', which I figured would get me smacked, so I said the first thing I thought of that wasn't a swear word."

When I reminded them of that argument, they were both amazed that I remembered it (neither of them did), and laughed about Sis's discarded retort. Mom agreed that saying that would have gotten her slapped.

The disappointment thing worked on my oldest sister, my middle sister had to be grounded, and I watched it all going on and was very careful not to do anything that got noticed until I got to college, at which point the disappointment and grounding thing were useless--not to say Mother didn't try.

All Daddy had to do was frown at me to get me sobbing in contrition.

My parents were antispanking, and I think I got swatted twice. One I remember (it was a reflexive swat: I'd jumped on my dad while he was holding a fresh cup of coffee and it spilled all over both of us. At the time, I thought he was trying to just knock me out of the way) the other, which my mother STILL feels bad about, I have no recollection of.

In WTFF news, I had to go to 3 gas stations to find one that wasn't out of gas. And it was snowing. And really cold. And windy. I couldn't feel my fingers. SRSLY, what was up with that. Gas's been under $1.90 for a couple days, and all places were within 5 cents of each other. Crazy.

Only traumatic one was when I was spanked for crying.

That's what I hate to see in public. "I said!" whap "STOP" whap "CRYING!!" Yeah, it mostly doesn't work.

I got a lot of mocking by my elder sibs for whining, so my parents didn't have to do much punishing for that (which I did do a lot--youngest child syndrome, I think!).

All this talk about punishment reminds me of what happened over the weekend in Vegas. We were staying at my sister and BIL's house, which has five dogs and a cat in residence as well as the humans. When I came down Sunday morning, the dogs were being obviously ignored by my sister, who was definitely pissed. I asked her what was up--the dogs had managed to open the pantry door and raid it overnight, leaving saltine crumbs and mac&cheese dried pasta all over the kitchen, dining room, and outside (they have a doggy door to the patio/pool). When she was cleaning up the mess after yelling at all of the dogs (although she's pretty sure the instigator was the youngest of the bunch, they all took advantage of the booty), she never did manage to find two of the cheese packages, but she did eventually fish out an empty saltine sleeve from the pool's filter that afternoon.

BIL spent the rest of the morning installing an extra childproof hook on the pantry door (the one that was already there was obviously not enough). The dogs didn't even bother to look guilty.

I was spanked as a kid, but only in response to extreme provocation, only as a last resort and never in anger. Once I got a old enough for guilt to work, the spanking stopped. Occasionally I would ask my father if he could beat me like some of the neighborhood kids Dads did instead of the "I'm so disappointed speech". His response was that "If all I thought you deserved was a beating I'd give you a beating. You've earned this speech and are going to listen to it."

My best friend's youngest brother got into trouble for something and was sent to his room. They heard the door slam and then the sound of him crying (dramatically) which was typical. But when the crying continued for much longer than usual someone went to check on him. He had recorded himself crying, put the tape on continuous play and crawled out the window to play outside.

Kathy, I'm guessing those cheese packages will have turned up say 6 or 8 hours later. Dogs iz gross.

He had recorded himself crying, put the tape on continuous play and crawled out the window to play outside.

Hilarious.