guest post by jane!
A few years ago for Christmas I wrote short stories for everyone and made them into books. One of the short stories for Charlie involved a couple memories where mom and dad made the mistake of leaving us alone in the house for more than a couple hours.
The first memorable incident involved a week long trip where mom and dad left for Chicago because mom was training for work, so Charlie and I had the house to ourselves! When the parents are gone, and there’s no one to tell us to clean, we don’t. Empty pop cans lined the walls, dirty plates and bowls, mugs and glasses everywhere, and I’m sure there were dirty socks strewn about, left there from our launching them across the room. Mind you, we were both in high school at the time. (editor’s note: jane was a senior.)
We had a foolproof plan, though! Mom and dad weren’t supposed to come home until dinner time on Friday, so after school we would run around like mad men and clean the bajeezus outta the house. Sounds great! Only hiccup-mom and dad came home early, and the car was in the driveway when we got off the bus. My heart sank, because I knew they would talk to us about it, show their disappointment, and scold us for being lazy.  They had picked up the cans, loaded the dishwasher, and I didn’t need to see the basement to know the socks had been tossed down the laundry chute for washing. I braced for the disappointment, and we got the talking to. I felt terrible about it, but! We didn’t have to clean. 🙂
Another distinct memory I have of Charlie (we were, again, both in high school-definitely old enough to know better) involved the living room coffee table. Dad had a strict rule of “no feet on the coffee table”, and he gave a cough and a glower whenever he caught someone breaking the rule. (editor’s note: except granddaughter hannah. hmmm.)
I don’t remember why mom and dad were gone this time, and it was for a shorter period: perhaps only an afternoon. I’m going to give credit to Charlie for coming up with the idea (although I could have easily thought of it myself). We love rough housing (in the house, of course), so we figured a fun game would be to sit back to back on the coffee table and see who could push the other person off the table. Great fun! We were pretty evenly matched, and we got a couple rounds in before a very distinct cough (and subsequent glower) caught our attention. We were in deep doo-doo. Another talking to, more disappointment, and we might have been grounded (maybe-grounding seems pretty harsh for having a little fun). Either way, we knew better, did it anyway, and got caught.
I figured the moral of both the stories is to listen to the little voice in our heads that tell us mom and dad won’t like it if we do this. That, and don’t get caught.