laverne and shirley | OldDogNewTits

It’s time for Ketchup With Us. Hosted by Mel and me on the 1st & 15th each month, the link-up gives you TWO ways to play: (A) Write about ANYTHING for 10 minutes straight without stopping OR (B) Link up an old post. I’m an indecisive pain in the ass so I always do both!

The year was 1980-something. And I was having a sleepover with one of my best friends named … wait, I shouldn’t actually call her by her real name, should I? Well, let’s just call her Bolleen. A few weeks earlier, Bolleen and I had decided we wanted to try to sneak out in the middle of the night after everyone had fallen asleep.

So we spent weeks planning our big escape. Should we use the front door? No, it was too close to my parents’ bedroom. The back door? The side door? No, both of their locks were sticky and we’d surely create too much of a ruckus and wake up my very light-sleeping dad.

Maybe a window. Yes, that’s it. We could sneak out through the big bay window in the breakfast room. But not the one on the left. One of its springs was broken and it made such a loud popping noise every time you opened it that we would’ve woken up my parents, the neighbors and possibly a few families in the next zip code if we attempted it.

Fortunately, the other window was whisper quiet when you slid it open. In the weeks prior, I checked it a few times during the day when no one was around. I just needed to remember to leave it unlocked before we went to bed that night so that the flipping of the lever wouldn’t wake anyone. Never mind the fact that I was leaving us all open to the wrath of any and all escaped axe murderers in the area.

I was on a mission.

Now back to the big night. Bolleen came over for our sleepover and we pretended to go to sleep and waited everyone out until sometime after midnight. Then, we quickly changed from our pajamas into the all-black ensembles we’d preselected for the occasion. Our only references back then were from goofball comedies like Laverne & Shirley.

Now fully clad in black (including dance tights), we snuck out of my room and down the stairs. That whole run was carpeted. No problem. Then, we rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs from the foyer into the den. At that moment, we were about exactly ten feet from my sleeping father. If we could survive this part, we could survive any part of the night.

Done.

We crept through the carpeted den and into the breakfast room over to the unlocked-by-me-earlier-that-afternoon window and took turns stepping through it into the garden just outside. Then, we walked around the back of the house, through the side gate and into the driveway.

We’d done it. Surely, it was at least one in the morning by now. We were outside. All by ourselves.

And we were free!!!!!

(awkward pause) (blink, blink)

Of course, being kids, we hadn’t really thought about anything beyond that point. I don’t think either of us actually expected to get that far. So we both stared at each other for a moment or two. What we were going to do? Where were we going to go? We had no plans. We had no cars. We didn’t even have driver’s licenses.

We were only children after all. So we just sat in the driveway a few minutes to revel in the glory of our “rebellion,” then we climbed back in through the window, changed clothes and went to bed. And no one but Bolleen and me ever even knew about this little story. Until now.

Oops.

In response to MamaKat’s prompt asking for “something you got away with.”

Our esteemed Ketchup With Us Featured Writer from last time is …

Kir

BEHIND THE KETCHUP

Click here to read how this foolishness all began.

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While straightening up a bit around here at ODNT, I came across an old draft of a post I abandoned last July. I neither have any idea why I started writing it nor, for that matter, why I stopped. But when I read it tonight, it made me laugh. Maybe because I’m just as dumb as I was last summer. Or maybe just ’cause it was a shitty day. Either way, please enjoy my late night ramblings. I assure you that, once you’re done, you’ll be no smarter for having read it.

* * * * * * * * * *

1. I shaved my underarm hair into a mohawk. On the right side only. I’m not very hairy so it didn’t even show. But it was itchy.

2. I had double pierced ears and decided that one of my ears needed a third hole. So I did it myself. With a needle and a cube of ice. On a ferry boat.

3. A friend and I wanted to embarrass a boy we knew so we sent in a request to Casey Kasem for Air Supply’s Every Woman in the World to Me. We sent it from him to us. And it was played. Man, were we cool.

4. I tried to sneak into Officer and a Gentleman but accidentally bolted into the wrong R-rated movie and got stuck seeing Scott Baio in Zapped instead. (Fun fact: Also in Zapped? Willie Aames.)

5. I impersonated Shirley Feenie with a friend dressed as Laverne and together we performed their theme song … moves and all … in front of my whole grade school.

6. My campaign slogan for 7th grade Vice President was a bastardization of a Rick Springfield song: “I’ll do everything for you … if you vote for me.” I lost.

7. I got a concussion in high school because I hit my head on the tampon machine in the girl’s bathroom. I am not in my yearbook that year because of this injury.

8. A friend and I heard Lee press-on nails couldn’t catch on fire so we put that theory to the test. While wearing them.

9. I made a sculpture out of meat with a friend and left it anonymously on a teacher’s portable classroom stairs.

10. I impersonated Mick Jagger and lipsynched to Satisfaction with an American flag tied around my neck for roughly three thousand people.

11. The first time I tried shaving, I dried shaved the entirety of my arms and legs with a disposable razor.

12. I once painted all of my fingernails and lips with Liquid Paper.

13. I attempted to convince my mom that I didn’t cheat on my Science test even though she was holding my cheat sheet in her hand. Then I fainted during my closing argument.

14. I saw a scene in Gone with the Wind where Scarlett gargled with perfume so I tried it. Don’t ever try it.

15. I had a shiny pink satin jacket with purple trim that said Roller Disco in raised rock glitter across the back.

16. I had semi-professional recordings made of myself singing Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll, You Needed Me and Sister Golden Hair as a kid.

17. I attended speech therapy for my Cindy Brady lisp.

18. Because of #17, I had something called a “tongue cage” affixed on the inside of my bottom teeth that required neck-gear when I slept.

19. I snuck and slept on the floor of my parents’ room every time I saw a horror movie through the end of high school.

20. I attended sleep-away guitar camp. Two years in a row. And, yes, I have seen American Pie.