This was back a number of years, maybe late-'80s or early-'90s. We were still living in the house on Casady Drive.
Here's the Casady house, circa early '80s:
I think I must've been getting ready to head back to college at the time this event occurred. It was the end of summer, with Labor Day fast approaching.
My parents were planning the family's last trip to the lake house in Lake Ozark, MO. However, for one reason or another, my youngest brother and I had decided that neither one of us wanted to spend another weekend at the lake house that summer. I don't really know his reason, but I think I wanted my last weekend to be at home before heading back out to college.
Anyway, my mom had no problem with my staying home, and said that if I were willing to take care of Alex, he could stay home, too. I agreed to the task.
When the 3-day-weekend finally arrived, we watched the rest of the family pull out of the driveway that Friday afternoon with excited grins on our faces.
The first thing we did was get into my car and head to the video store. As we browsed through the hundreds of VHS titles, Alex said to me, "Can I get 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show'? I've never seen it and it's not really something Mom would let me watch. Would you mind if I got it?" Keep in mind that he was in middle school at the time (I'm a number of years his senior). But being the cool sister that I am, I said, "Why the heck not?"
"The Rocky Horror Picture Show," and a couple other titles later, we headed down the strip mall's sidewalk to the Dahl's grocery store, just a few doors down from the video store. Were we getting stuff for dinner? Noooo . . . of course not! We went in and got a few pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream.
Once back home, we immediately went to the den to start movie night and order a pizza! Just about 30 minutes into our first movie (it may have been "Rocky Horror" or something like "Flash Gordon" - I can't remember), we got our pizza (and a couple sodas) - which we ate in the den! This is definitely something that would NOT have been allowed if our mother had been home!
Later on after our pizza started digesting during our "weird movies" movie night, we dug into the ice cream. In the den, of course!
Then after the last of our movies it was off to bed, leaving an empty pizza box, some soda cans, and an empty ice cream container (with dirty spoons) where they lay. Luckily Alex hadn't fallen asleep in the den that night - I didn't want him sleeping in there all night, and I wouldn't have been able to carry him to his room.
The next day - that Saturday of Labor Day weekend - after sleeping in late, and leaving a mess of dirty cereal bowls in the kitchen - the two of us headed to the zoo! I don't recall whose idea it was, but it was a fun outing - until it started raining! I think we ended up heading to the Science Center for something fun indoors, but when we got there, it was closed!
Ah, well. That meant more time at the video store returning our previous rentals and getting 3 more movies. I don't remember the titles, but D.B. Sweeney, Marlee Matlin, Jeff Bridges were among the actors. I vaguely remember renting "Starman" and "The Vanishing" sometime that weekend.
Of course, that also meant more Ben & Jerry's being picked up at the grocery store before heading home, and another pizza delivery that evening. And yet another late night watching movies, and pigging out on junk food.
But this time, we piled up two day's worth of pizza boxes and ice cream containers in the kitchen before going to sleep that night.
I don't remember what we did on Sunday, but Sunday night was more of the same - movies, pizza, and ice cream. Somehow we hadn't finished watching all our rentals Sunday night before hitting the hay. But we did get a chance to clear the den of all junk food evidence. However, it was now all piled up in the kitchen . . . okay, not the soda cans, but the pizza boxes. I still can't believe we ate pizza three nights in a row.
Well, Monday arrived, and since we hadn't finished watching our videos from the night before, that's what we did - we watched the remaining movie. I think we ended up going through the drive-thru at McDonald's for lunch before settling into our comfy chairs in the den and starting the movie - with our bags of fast food in the den.
At some point, we got a call from our mom, stating that they were leaving, and what time she and the rest of the family would be back. It was sometime late afternoon or early evening - around dinner time.
No problem! Alex and I had plenty of time to finish our movie and get rid of the evidence.
That is, we thought we had enough time . . . until early that afternoon, when we were both standing in the kitchen (overlooking the driveway, garage, and extra parking area), and we saw that familiar van heading up the street, and turning into the driveway!!!
Oh, no! We both panicked! We had pizza boxes strewn about the kitchen, empty McDonald's bags from that day's lunch, dirty cereal bowls from three mornings of breakfasts, empty soda cans . . . what were we gonna do? How were we gonna explain this?!
We both grabbed a couple big garbage bags and started filling them with the trash we'd accumulated over the 3-day-weekend. Once we did that, I started quickly rinsing off the breakfast dishes and filling the dishwasher. As I did that, I sent Alex to the den to make sure we'd gotten all the trash picked up and thrown into one of the garbage bags we'd been using.
A quick look outside and we saw the rest of the family as they were getting out of the van, unloading their bags from the very back, and off the roof rack, and gathering any accumulated trash from the passenger area of the van.
Okay, a quick survey of the kitchen. Seemed clean enough . . . now what to do about the garbage bags?! The dumpster was outside near the garage . . . but we'd have to go past the family with trash bags in tow, to get to the dumpster!
I sent Alex with the trash bags to the back yard, hiding behind some shrubbery, and listening for the all clear. I went out the side door to greet the family as they came in, and I stayed out there after the last one walked in the door. Then I called to Alex and told him to hurry up and dump the trash bags into the dumpster, which he did.
Then we both went inside with angelic looks on our faces. Aside from a "you could've gotten this kitchen a little bit cleaner" from my mom, no one ever suspected that our Movie, Pizza, and Ben & Jerry's weekend was just that - a fun, movie-filled weekend with lots of junk food!
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3 comments:
Sounds like a fun weekend! Does you brother remember it as clearly as you? I sure miss those high school days when you could live for days on junk food and feel (and look) none the worse for it. ;-)
He remembers it almost as well as I do, if not AS well. I think he remembers the movie titles better than I do. But he and I agree as to how much fun that weekend was.
Love Memory lane
xoxo
SC
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