My sister, Christine, and I shared a bedroom for many years, sleeping in a double bed with a special head board, handcrafted and painted blue and white by Dad.
Perhaps he was inspired by our dining room window seats, as he fashioned "window seats" for us as our head board. Hinged covers opened to a storage area, one on each side, so we each had our own. In them, we kept books and assorted treasures. They were also a great hiding spot, though frowned upon by Mom, for candy.
On one particular occasion, we had gotten some root beer barrels (2 for a penny at Dory's), and they were safely stowed away for a bedtime treat.
We crawled into bed, turned off the lights, and had no sooner popped them into our mouths, savoring the strong flavor of root beer, when Mom came into the bedroom to check on us and say good night.
"What's that I smell?" Mom asked.
With our mouths full (root beer barrels are pretty hard to hide in your cheek), we mumbled something like, "I don't know" or "Oh, nothing."
Needless to say, our root beer barrels were confiscated, but we couldn't figure out how she knew about them in the first place.
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One summer evening, Mom had a ladies' gathering at our house. The coffee was percolating, the cake was cut, the glass dessert plates, the ones with the spot to hold the small cup, were set out on the flowery tablecloth in the dining room.
We were all sent off to bed as the ladies began to arrive.
After awhile, we could hear that their party was underway and assumed they were all present.
Since our bedroom faced the front of the house, Christine and I often perched on our elbows by the window, just to look out to see what was going on. In our quiet neighborhood, usually nothing.
But on this particular evening, we noticed a woman walking up the street. Unable to resist, we leaned out the window and hollered, "Hey, you, Lady!" or something to that effect.
We knew we were in for it when the woman proceeded up our front steps and we heard our doorbell ring. Sure enough, it was Mrs. Melander coming to join the ladies' gathering.
But what wasn't so amusing the following morning sure is funny to us today.
You know, I really think we'd do it all over again.
