Hippies and Mexican Tomato Plants

Whack… slapped the stick, three times on my outstretched rump. Seriously, do you really think for one moment that after all I had been through already, that a couple well placed eraser-bombs and several smacks on my tight little derrière was going to have any effect! I was like one of those used cars for sale that looked good on the outside, but already had a million miles on it.  While still in the "position" (last blog post) I tried my darnedest to pass gas...but to no avail, because I didn't have the superpowers that one of my older brothers, Dooh-Dooh Pants, had who so magnificently mastered. There I was, stomach churning, butt pointed at everyone I wanted to payback, but was unable to channel my gastric juices into a defensive weapon.

The year is 1968 and a lot has happened in the last two years - since the 5th grade. Obviously I lived through Sr. Godzilla, the 5th grade "Templates" (blog Post June 26th) and somehow managed to make it this far.

One brother was in Viet Nam. My oldest brother, Gustav had been Honorably Discharged from the military with some lame excuse like having bad teeth or because he had a rare blood type. Three of the other brothers - the ones who were full-fledged, long-haired, Anti-Viet-Nam-War-hippies, didn't just burn their draft cards, but sent them back to President Johnson to make an even bigger statement...

Which reminds me of our chance - impossible - real-live-encounter with the President of the United States, which took place while we were driving across country on our vacation this past summer. 

TRUE STORY

Who else in the world does this happen to?  Nobody, right?  Nobody, other than the Dahlins! We'll get to that in the next couple blog post... but, seriously... what are the mathematical probabilities of running into the Presidential motorcade in North Texas and having a chance encounter.  It is about the same, I guess of having an alien abduction in the middle of New York City.  (You're going to have to wait on that one. Oh, and add snapping turtles to the story - and it must be something like, 1:100,000,000 to the 120th power).

After what happened to John F. Kennedy... it made you wonder why LBJ, the 36th President, of the United States got out of his protected limousine and pulled his dirty rotten trick on us.

Didn't he know he was messing with the "Wolf Pack." 

By this time the Lennons were beginning to wonder off the reservation and the older boys had also begun to let their hair hang low. Pat and Billy had traversed the chasm of our tarry-asphalt street and engaged in some of the bizarre behaviors of Hotel Crazy at our pad. The virus of the hippy-bug made its way across the street, past the Blessed Virgin Mary that stood guard in their front window and spread the infection in their house. Getting into this long-haired-hippy movement, the older Lennon boys began to fit right in with the Dahlins and embraced "what my older brothers had begun cultivating" in the far reaches of the backyard - hidden behind old cars, boats that refused to float, stacks of decaying National Geographics and  lots of junk that was perfect for protecting their secret garden. My older bothers told my parents were "Mexican Tomato Plants"   Heck, I don't know why they spent so much time out there caring the trimming those plants - didn't seem to do any good. The dumb plants never did grow tomatoes - go figure!  

Last year in the Sixth Grade my oldest brother, Gustav and his girl friend, Patty, took me to Sears and bought me a really cool Tobias suit. This is the famous picture that Marilyn Monroe is holding at the top of my Blog Post (until I change it, of course).
 
My Sixth Grade felt like a"life-sentence"  with hard labor. (more about that later). But, look at how cute this little guy is!

These was my first real clothes, that weren't hand-me-down-down-down-down-downs. This didn't come with blood stains or bullet holes or 17 patches over patches... Just look at him.

LADY KILLER right!

Imagine all those six grade girls drooling all over me! I wasn't keeping count and didn't have a clue.  Look into those precious eyes that seem to be lost in deep thought. What do you supposed I was thinking at that moment? Probably didn't have anything to do with girls.  I'll bet anything that I was too busy contemplating my everyday survival to be a "player."  If I had any inkling that a girl liked me, I was so insecure that I couldn't even open my mouth. I stuttered...and most people didn't know because they thought I was just being funny and a lot of my words didn't come out right. (No one in my family listened so anyone, they all just competed for floor time and had no idea that I had speech problems - except for my dad. He kept telling me that I should learn to talk with marbles in my mouth to help my pronuncification)

And what others thought was confidence was really just nothing more than the artful-dodging of a lonely street rat - still searching for the meaning of life and wanting to hear one word spoken in my HOUSE!

Next Time - The infamous story of amateur taxidermy and the SKUNK STINK-SACKS.

Please, no one tell the Blasers - because I don't think they know how their beloved collie got a hold of these things that he dragged like a crazed werewolf into the house. 


The Beatles have a song. It's been a hard days night... but for me it has been a hard-couple years..and I feel like I've been working like a dog just to survive the pits, and the jalapenos, and the big-bang-burnie, and the fights, and the mosquitoes, and leprosy, and the Veloci-rooster and the alligator...

                                                                    Just how much farther would Markie D make it?    

Book 2: Writhering Worm of Death (Cloak Room Caper pt 1)

"Head tones!" she shouted. "Head tones, class!" Sister Edith exhorted the seventh grade class to dig deep and reach for higher notes. Most of the girls couldn't even reach notes that high. The boys, on the other hand, sounded like mice whose tails had been slammed in the door - because most of them were going through puberty and their voices were cracking like when the needle gets to the end of a record.

 I think Sister thought that we were the Vienna boys choir, but I had bad news for her - Ricky already had a mustache and no one in our class could get even get within eight notes of the octave she was trying to push us to - expect Anthony! He liked all this singing business.



Me, why... I wasn't a Lennon and God did not give me the gift of singing (I could whistle- though). When God was handing out voices I think our entire Dahlin tribe was probably off fighting one another or hanging on monkey bars - and the Lennons...well, they probably went through the line twice. Anyway, in middle of this music lesson, I figured I had better excused myself and made my way to the boy's room. God forbid that I try to hold it in again! I never - ever wanted to go through what had happened in Miss/Mrs. Sim/Simpson's class (Blog Post June 18th)! (I know the whole Sim/Simpson thing is weird; I didn't get it, but that's what I called her.)






While the awful cacophony of "Do, Re, Mi" was curdling the blood of the surrounding classrooms and irritating nearby dogs, I had to figure out some excuse for not going back. Ugh...I could hear Anthony and the girls screeching and the boys squawking that hurt my ears worst than fingernails on a chalkboard. I had to find a way out or I might die! "Think, think, think, Markie D," I said to myself pounding my fist to my head. I needed one of my flashes of genius and could only think about pretending to be sick.

I contemplated that for less than a second. The last time I checked himself into the school nurse in an effort to get out of a test and go home sick, it didn't turn out so good for anybody.

It was back in the 5th grade (in Sister Godzilla's class) when I fainted illness and she sent me to the infirmary.  The volunteer mother there, tried to convince me that I had gas and told me to bend over, grab my ankles and "push!"  She yield at me like a cheerleader or a doctor for a mother giving birth..."Push! Push! Push," she exhorted, waiting for me to pass gas! Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was?

Sister Godzilla came in to make sure I wasn't trying to ditch and as she walked in the door - there I was with my little 12 year-old butt pointed right at her. She had the audacity to yell at me like this was all my fault. "Be careful where you point that thing, it might be loaded!"

Good Grief.

To make matters worst...in walked one of the teacher aids... a cool girl from the eight grade - my life was ruined.

 "Fourth most embarrassing moment in my life."

In a brilliant flash of genius, I quickly let go of my ankles and began fumbling about the floor as if searching for something the nurse-mom had misplaced.

"Nope, don't see it down here either!" I said, pretending to help the volunteer mom find something that wasn't really lost. Standing up, I stretched up high on my tippy toes and looked up on top of a dusty old cabinet and said, "Uh-uh, not here either.  Yep," I said loud enough for Theresa to hear, "I think I'll go back to class now.. I think everything is OKAY"

Brilliant! It had double meaning... to the cute girl, she was supposed to hear that I was finished with my heroic effort to help Mrs. Putziger and to Mrs. Putziger she was supposed to hear that I was fine, because her old "wives' tale" trick worked. Geezers, imagine if this got spread about school. That defining moment in 5th grade cured me of one thing. 

 I would never go to the infirmary again.

Ha...I felt the least I could do was spread a little Harding Avenue joy and "crop-dust" on the way out  of the room (Dooh-Dooh Pants coined the term "crop dust" and perfected the art of clearing entire rooms with a single SBD).  Maliciously I left them in a malodorous "Silent-But-Deadly" cloud and vowed never to return again... then I hid in the alcove of Sister Shultz' classroom and watched as Mrs. Putziger and Theresa hastily emerged from the infirmary office choking and gasping for fresh air thinking ill of the other.                          Who said school had to be totally dull?

Well, that was then and this was now. Since I had opted out of the "faking-a-sick-stomach" routine, my options were sorely limited as I passed by the infirmary and begrudging made my way slowly back to the terrorizing sounds of 7th graders who were attempting to reach decibel levels that hurt human ears. It was rumored that Sister Edith's music classes drove 'O Mr. Snyder's dog bonkers (He was the grouch who lived behind Saint Mark's grammar school and stole every kickball that went over the fence for revenge- who could blame him right?)

There was no one in the hallway at that moment, so in an effort to kill some time I threw himself down on the ground and rolled around pretending be dying an agonizing death. Just so happened that Marilyn had come back from the supply room with the ditto-copier machine and had rounded the corner to find me rolling and squirming around on the ground like a possum that had been half-run-over by a car. This might be the fifth most embarrassing moment after being caught holding my ankles - butt in the air - and being cheered to "PUSH!"

Freezing like a mutant worm on the  floor, I freaked out and wondered how this could possible help my reputation with ladies. All I needed was for Marilyn to tell Andrea that her suspicions were correct and I was retarded. I was in love, but was so insecure - I couldn't even say a word to Andrea or barley look in her direction without melting like the Popsicle at Salton Sea (Blog Post May 13th).

(See me flexing in the rear... that was the weekend they left me there when that 'O Popsicle just melted down my arm and onto the ground!)

By this time, I had been electrocuted and buried and shot at and tricked and stuffed and hunted and was insecure in my own skin. I was pathetic and desperately needed to feel accepted and often sought approval in all the wrong ways. Looking up at Marilyn, ten thousand scenarios flashed through my hyper active pea-brain. Yet, none of those excuses that I could immediately come up with - could not explain this incredibly abnormal behavior.

FLASH - Epiphany! The school play, popped into my noggin! The annual Christmas pageant this year was supposed to be sponsored by the seventh grade class. Quickly I asked, "Well what do you think?" As, though rolling around on the floor, was something that wasn't completely bizarre!

Astonished, Marilyn asked, "What on earth do you mean, what do I think?"

Smiling confidently, I took the offensive, "Is it believable?" I pressed her for an answer.

"Believable! What the heck are you talking about?" Marilyn asked with an incongruous look on her face.

"Pshawww...Can't you see! I'm practicing for the play! Come on Marilyn, get with it. As a shepherd, do you think that when the angels visited the poor shepherds out in the fields at night- that I should roll around on the ground like this (I gave her another little sample) as though I am dying of an awful fright? Well?" I asserted with serious eyes.

"Well, what?" she said, holding her position.

"Well, did it work? Did it look like I was dying from fright... do you think the audience will buy it?"

"Well, whatever" she said and rolled around me with the mimeograph-copy-machine-thingy keeping a wide birth, like I was one of those possessed guys in the bible.

I dragged myself slowly back to the classroom on my belly and laid outside the door practicing my writhing. Finally I built up the courage to open the door and crept in quietly while holding my ears. I just couldn't take it and seriously contemplated going back to the infirmary and holding my butt in the air like a frightened stink bug...for anyone and everyone to see, when the perfect plan came to me in another flash.

Instead of returning to my seat... I slipped unnoticed into the "cloak room" with a grin on my face that had to put the mean old Grinch's smile to shame.

I had a plan... and hummed the Beatles, "Hey Jude" to make it better... as I exectued my brilliant pla. 

Next time "The Cloak Room Caper"

The Shocking and Vomitous Thursday Part 1

Before going Rogue (i.e. traveling up to the Rogue River in Eagle Point Oregon for a Harding Avenue reunion) in search of my past... I left off last time, still in the very first week of 5th grade. Thus far, I have only gotten as far as Wednesday.  Every Wednesday and Thursday the Dahlins put on a show for the rest of the neighborhood in the wild frenzy of  pushing the broken down fleet of cars and trash barges (trucks) from one side of the street to the other (blog post 7-3-13) in a "Tow-War" with the city.

Normally, the loud Italians across the street could be heard screaming at this time in the morning, but even that was put on hold as they blissfully united behind their large picture window in quiet harmony to watch the angry cacophony of discord as the Wolf Pack was whipped into shape by my Staff-Sergeant dad, in something just as spectacular as Ringling Brother's Circus act, only different! 

After surviving the Wednesday ritual of pushing cars, booger wars and Dooh-Dooh Pants passing gas that made me throw up in the gutter in front of Blaser's house, Wednesday was just like any other day for any other normal kid. I went in and ate my oatmeal cereal (secretly scooping out the meal worms behind my dad's back) and choked down the powered stuff dad had mixed into the stuff that had thickened and become sour, by pinching my nose and standing over the toilet - just in case!

At lunch, I received another "Template" from Chewbacca (see blog post, 6-26-2013), Michael C was smart enough not to touch my sacred sour dough toast (blog post 6-29-13) and somehow I managed to stay under Sister Godzilla's radar.

As I've mentioned previously, mom had pretty much quit cooking. She began to teach at Saint Marks and after school she locked herself in her room and didn't cook meals for us anymore.

That night, us little kids fed ourselves. Mary was a grade up in the 6th grade and already knew how to cook dinner. She made us "Helper." The Lennons, the Blasers or rich kids got to eat Hamburger Helper... but ours was just "Helper." The worst was when it was "Peanut-butter and Zucchini Helper."  I always ate that standing over the toilet. Okay, so we weren't normal, but at least the Venice police department department didn't show up that day and that was typically a good day for us. 

Thursday Morning:
"Up and at 'em. Time of the harvest moon. Let's go, go, go, go, go, go, go..." my dad screamed, stomping on the bottom step of the third floor stairs beating the walls with a broom handle. "Come on girly-girly-men... party all night, sleep all day! Oh, big men on campus...let's go, go, go, go, go, go, go..." my dad shouted as the entire lot of us had to push all the cars back to the other side of the street where we had pushed them from the morning before.

As the regular neighbors stood behind their windows and watched the fiasco an older couple drove down the street and spoke as they slowed past..."Did you loose a shoe? Little fella." they asked me.

"No" I said. "I found one!"  They shook their heads and sped away, but the way I looked at it (with the mess in our house), I was lucky to find one. If I couldn't find a matching shoe, I'd probably wear one I found and one of my dad's - wouldn't be the first time. However, it seemed to be a premonition that something was going to go wrong. I was nervous all day long but made it through the day unscathed, no fights, no trips to Sister Superior's office and no whacks on the behind by Sister Godzilla's well-worn yardstick.

I sneeked home through the Daniel's house, averting an ambush by Ulrich and his crew of little angry people... It had indeed been a good day. YEAH! 

Thursday night word had gone out that we were having a spaghetti feast. Since mom had stopped cooking meals, eating together as a family had become a rare event. If they needed to, the older boys could run down to the new McDonalds next to the church and buy 15 cent burgers, but the girls and I had to scavenge the cupboards and fend for ourselves.

Rumor had it that Kurt was making a hundred gallon pot full of spaghetti and word hit the streets like an elephant with diarrhea! I know that was a pretty gross illustration, but all that meant was that the news rapidly sprayed all over town.

A couple people even came by just to see if it was true that we were going to have real hamburger meat instead of zucchini or raisins in the sauce.

(If you look close enough, you can see the specks of meat).

As Kurt was stirring the pot with a big paddle the Wolf Pack was preparing something special in the kitchen for unsuspecting visitors. My dad had begun a remodel in the kitchen years before that had ended in a permanent state of temporary.


Next to the table, two old black wires stuck out of the wall. For light in the kitchen you had to touch the two wires together. Sparks flashed when the ends  touched which sent sparks of imagination through the heads of the older boys - brilliant flashes of creative and diabolical genius. They had figured out how to hold onto one end of one wire and have another group of boys hold on to the other end then connect hands in the middle... not only could you turn on the light, but at the same time everyone could share in the 110 volts of electricity (please, please, please do not try this at home! People have died... why we didn't die, nobody knows!). The best fun was to have two separate groups holding on to their seperate wires and then to catch some unsuspecting person walking by - closing the circuit - watching all that hair stand up on end, with the person in the middle peeing their pants in complete, shocking surprise; the coup de gras!

As victim of choice, I had been the fuse too many times already - not tonight! Tonight I had decided not to stray too close to the electrically charged Wolf Pack and they had come up with a new twist on their diabolical plan. They had the two groups (each holding on to one of the wires) stretch all the way to the front door - with one group going down the hall and the other around through the living room. They waited in the entry for their very first victim. I prayed that it might be Sister Godzilla or Ulrich, but saw John Masson instead coming up to stairs to see this thing about spaghetti night at the Dahlins.

John came to see the show, but didn't realize he'd be the main attraction...

Hold on, hang in there...it just keeps getting better!  


PS The rubber stamp etching above was carved by my daughter, Kiera. 

Please don't read this... Mrs. Simpson and the PEE-PEE incident!

In my Blog, I’m still talking about my first week in fifth grade where I ended up in Sr. Godzilla’s class. She did not fail to live up to the terror her Saint Marks’ grammar school nickname invoked. 

So far (if you have tuned in and read some of my stories) you realize that our family was just NOT normal.   

We lived in what many would consider a GOOD CATHOLIC neighborhood and felt that between the Dahlins and the four other Lennon families nearby - our wonderful and obedient parents did everything they could to fulfill the Dominion Mandate of Genesis chapter 1 “Multiply and fill the earth.”  Between those five homes (alone) we had something like 53 kids and could have populated a small city all by ourselves (Wait...we did have a small city all by ourselves).

My mom had a baby a year and the Lennon Family (on the corner) are in Ripley’s Believe It or Not for having 11 kids (all of whom are born in different months – statistically, that’s an anomaly).

The only problem with the Dominion Mandate in Genesis Chapter 1…( besides the command to have lots of babies) is also the command by God to “Subdue and Rule over the world.”  That was probably a good idea at one time, but then after sin entered the world that’s where everything went wrong and Vikings were invented to pillage, plunder and terrorized the civilized world i.e. "to take dominion"

While the Lennons were obediently having children and appearing on TV every Saturday night on the Lawrence Welk show, my older brothers were busy wreaking havoc - also obediently keeping the command to subdue and rule i.e "to dominate" our little corner of the world.

Being something like 7^th or 8^th or whatever number I was in birth order (the last male child), I imagine that I was left to change my own diapers and feed myself from scraps that were either thrown to me in the corner or food that had fallen off the table.

I was like Mowgli, the lost child, being raised in the jungle. Our house was literally a jungle not only with kids and strangers who lived with us… but also the four legged creatures, reptiles, and birds that we brought home. Just look at that picture above... there I am in diapers holding a piece of 2 day old toast that I probably found on the ground...yum... yum!

I don’t blame my parents one bit for checking out, but that might be one reason it allowed the Wolf-Pack to reigned holy terror at Saint Marks (as well as in our neighborhood).  This might also explain the reason why the nuns at Saint Marks School felt they had to take out revenge on me.  By the time I came along, those poor nuns had enough of the Dahlin infestation that plagued the school for at least the last ten years.

Back then I didn’t know why I felt hated even on the first day of every grade I moved up to, but have since figured that out (at least that’s a hypothesis I’m floating as a theory), which leads me to the embarrassing story that happened in the third grade at the hands of Mrs. Simpson. 

The Lennons: The best Catholic Family in the history of the world.(see Blog Post of 4-28-2013: The Best Catholics in the World ).

The Dahlins: Well, let's allow this picture to speak for itself.

If you have had a chance to follow this blog, then you're well aware that my poor parents checked out and let my brothers (the inmates of the Dahlin house) run the asylum… By this time, our family had let the monkeys out of the zoo, reeled in the old grouch next door in a horrible prank, left me behind at Salton Sea that ended in a highway patrol chase… and the Wolf pack lured me into a death chamber that used to be a diaper pail  for an extreme "twofer." It doesn’t take a rocket scientist, to see that our family was unique, creative, diabolical and totally in touch with our inner-Viking (that followed God's command to subdue, take dominion and rule the world). 

A year after the JFK assassination when the cold war with Russia was at its zenith, Miss Sims – turned Mrs. Simpson was the substitute teacher in my third grade class.  She was going to give a test! I had to go pee and should have gone when we came in from recess. I didn’t and needed to go real bad...REAL BAD!

The mean substitute, Mrs. Simpson stood on top of Sister Shawn’s desk and declared that the floor  was like water and swarmed with angry and hungry alligators that loved to eat Third Graders… especially blonde-haired boys!

Since I learned to live in my imagination as a way of escape… I actually saw the alligators swimming around my feet and snapping their sharp teeth at my Keds sneakers. Dramatically, Mrs. Simpson barked out shrill warnings as to the demands of her test requirements.

There was to be absolutely no talking, “What-so-ever!”

There was to be no cheating, “What-so-ever!”

AND nobody – not one person could, at any time during the test, -could  never, at any time, -ever-ever raise their hand “For any reason, what-so ever!”

Look  up gullible in the dictionary and this is what you will find.  Gullible [ˈgʌləb^əl]  adj Markie D i.e Easily deceived or duped.

I looked around to see if any of the other normal kids saw the ferocious alligators.  I was terrified, BUT HAD to go pee-pee really, really bad. However, Mrs. Simpson (the Sub, the one in authority) said that if I raised my hand for any reason the alligators would eat me. I was afraid and spent the entire time of the class set aside for the test contemplating as to whether her hungry alligators would eat a kid who raised their hand - if that particular kid just wanted permission to use the restroom!

Everyone was busy taking the test… I was busy watching for alligators and trying to hold back my bloated and pressurized bladder.  
      10 minutes of torture – not one answer put down on the test. 
      20 minutes of torture – not one answer put down.

I was holding my popo...and doing the pee-pee dance in my seat.  Feet wiggling, behind squirming, hand pinching! I sat for 30 minutes of torture – still contemplating whether a kid could raise their hand in order to go to the bathroom or if that meant it would upset her hungry alligators. 

40 minutes of torture and I just couldn’t take it anymore.  I eased up (just a bit -on the grip on my fire hose) and decided to relieve some of the pressure.

Pssst...Psst... went small amounts of warm yellow fluid that ran down my leg. UGHhhhhhhh! That didn’t make my bladder any happier – NO! Instead, it made matters worst and hurt even more.  Bad decision!

By the time a kid got to third grade – no kid in the history of world ever PEE’D their pants - No…that was something for Kindergarteners. Without one answer on my test I was feeling helpless and stupid like a 5 year-old.

Pssst-Pssst – went more of the yellow liquid.  “Leak over the starboard side captain!”  I shouted in my head! 

I couldn’t hold anything back anymore and let it all go!  I managed to do a controlled sinking and let everything do down the right leg and into my right shoe.

There I sat in a giant puddle of yellow pee… and luckily for me, no one noticed....so far! 

Could I get out of this alive or would Michael Boyle point it out to everyone.  Someone had to smell the sea of urine that flooded the entire area around my desk – but at least I didn’t raise my hand…I won!

Sure, I would get another F on a test, but at least I might have beat Mrs. Simpson and her third-grade-eating-alligators.

Only problem now was: could I escape this mess undetected? I decided to run home for lunch and change pants hoping that Ronnie or Pat or Rick Arredondo wouldn't spot the yellow ocean I left behind and call me out in front of everyone.

The test was over and I discretely tried to pretend that nothing had happened…I tried not to draw attention to the man on the grassy knoll… and that there was no CIA conspiracy in this episode of Markie D and the embarrassing incident of the third grade PEE-PEE.

Clop… slosh, clop…slosh, clop…slosh, went one dry Keds and the other sloshing wet shoe filled with pee-pee that left a trail down the long narrow hallway. 

I was almost all the way to the front door when a second grader slipped in my oil-spill and slid into a group of first graders like a bowling ball that knocked down a bunch bowling pins. The incident triggered an investigation to see where the spill took place… I ran home, hid my pants, checked under my bed for the rattlesnake that went missing yesterday, hid in my room and never came back that day.  

This will go down as the day that Markie D beat Mrs. Simpson and her alligators. I WON! 

If you've read this blog post share it with a friend, but please don't tell Marilyn or Theresa or Andrea...or any of my grammar school friends - because it is still embarrassing! 

Until next time...  

part 2 THE HAMPER OF DEATH: I Took the Bait.

"Sure...Kurt, you want me to climb into an the hamper that used to be an old diaper pail!"

This terrible decision all began when Karin and I were playing "The Healing of the Lame Man."  I had lost a shoe that had gotten buried in a pile of clothes somewhere and my ingenious mother decided to wrap my foot in an Ace bandage so I could pretend to have bum foot (She didn't want Mrs. Lennon to see me running around in the neighborhood with only one shoe).

Jump hobble thump. Jump Hobble thump. I had found a crutch and chased Karin around the second floor. Jump... Hobble... Thump went the thud of the crutch on the wooden floors.

Meanwhile the older boys, their girlfriends, a couple of the guys (that live upstairs in the room with the snake cages) and several neighbors were downstairs holding onto electrical wires that my dad had left hanging out of a wall during a past remodel that never got finished. I had already played that game with them enough and went upstairs to get away this time. I had been chasing Karin around as I hobbled on the old wooden crutch.

I don't know why none of us died holding on to those electrical wires...but we didn't. (IT'S DANGEROUS - DON'T DO IT). In my head, I could almost hear Mrs. Blaser saying, "Donny, I don't care if Tony Dahlin jumped off a building, it doesn't mean you have to jump off a building."  I could also see her saying, "YOU DID WHAT?" when he came home with curly hair and told her what the crazy Dahlins were up to next door.

Whenever the boys electrocuted themselves it was always like Frankenstein or something. "IT'S ALIVE!" It seemed to awaken the creative juices of the inner Viking - The Monster! It always spelled some kind of disaster for our neighborhood or just out-right trouble for either me or the grouch next door.

THIS IS WHERE THEY HATCHED THE PLAN - for the inglorious "TWOFER" They would get me and Edna at the same time.

A little bit about the poor, dear-old lady next door. I'm sure she wasn't always a grouch. I'm sure our moving in next door had something to do with it. I'm sure our cars, our junk stacked up on her fence, the fact that we stole her avocados and the fact that our rattlesnakes had kept escaping onto her property had something to do with it. Anyway poor Edna did not want us to touch one blade of her grass, stack car parts or used tires up against her fence or come within 10 FEET OF HER PRECIOUS BUICK!
                                                                                                    "My precious. My Precious!"

Anyway, Kurt and the boys had just finished frying their brains when they hatched this latest plan...where they had commissioned him to trap me.  "Hey Mark, do you want to play Hide-N-seek?"

"Me?" I asked, a little too enthusiastically - giving away too much up front. I wanted to be liked. I wanted to be loved. I wanted to be accepted.

He said that he had the best hiding spot in the history of Hide-N-Seek, then pointed to the hamper.

I gagged. The hamper! You mean the retired-diaper-pail! IT STILL SMELLED LIKE BABY DIAPERS - How could it you might ask (Karin has been out of diapers for years)?

Ahhhh...but think about this with me for a minute, because that's exactly what I was doing -THINKING ABOUT IT! With my vomit-superpowers and faulty brain-to-stomach wiring - Not Good!

  

With our family, eight babies with an average of about four or five diapers a day (a couple of those - most likely would have been full of green-baby-pooh). Multiply that by seven days-a-week, times another fifty-two-weeks a year. Multiply that by the fact that an average baby wears diapers for about two years, which means that over all those years and all those babies, (let me see, doing the math in my head), I figured that it had to be close to about a bazillion and one stinky, smelly, poopy diapers that had once been stored up in that diaper-pail. Meaning, that in order for me to successfully hurdle this hamper invitation, I would have to mentally overcome the picture of vast mountains of green-mushy baby-pooh that now occupied the better part of my brain.  Mt Everest of Pooh-Pooh.

8 (kids) X 5 (diapers)                                 X 7 (days a week)                                 X 52 (weeks in a year)                                 X 2 (years+/-) = 1,000,000,000,000,001  dirty, stinky, poopy, diapers

Gagging, I visualized that setting foot inside of that thing would be like tunneling into that mountain of baby diarrhea, which when latched, had no possible way of escape.

           "There are no windows and no doors!"

As soon as Kurt opened the lid, my stomach heaved in a pre-launch sequence for my super-vomit. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3…I willed my stomach into submission before the count-down reached zero. Miracle! Thank you Saint Anthony! Both, Kurt and my Hide-N-Seek career were saved. 

 "Come on boy. You can do it" Kurt said as if coaxing a frightened dog, but what he didn't know is that primordial metal container represented 85.14% of all my worst fears.

       1)    Smelly things.

       2)       Suffocation.

       3)    Death. (death was behind suffocation and gross smelly things). 

       4)    Small places.

       5)    Being left behind at Salton Sea

       6)    Brothers - after they've been jolted by electricity

       7)    Sister Godzilla

       8)   Things that smell like poop.

       9)   Things with lids that latch.

      10)   Small dark places.

      11)  Being trapped.

      12)  Being in things with lids that can be latched from the outside by a brother.

         13)  Brothers - before electricity

      14)  Any smell or sound or thought that makes me think I want to vomit. 

            15) Small dark places with latches that smelled like it had been used for diapers.

      16)  Mrs. Simpson, my third grade substitute teacher.

      17)  Finding Alligators in the bathtub.

      18)  Peeing your pants in 3rd grade. 

      19)  Getting hit by a car and having on dirty underwear 

      20)  Being raised by my Brothers or by the Salton Sea-ites.

I would never say yes!  "...um...sure Kurt, no problem."   WHY?   I was most definitely clinically-psychotic - there was no other explanation! I just wanted them to like me. I wanted to feel like I belonged.

In his generosity, he squish me into conformity of the diaper pail like I was made of Jello - slammed the lid closed and snapped down the old rusted metal flap on the outside. 

It wasn’t about a minute that I heard footsteps and voices

Like an unwelcome swarm of locus coming up the stairs I heard muffled hushes and shushes and whispers and the solid thuds of well-placed fists as the clan smacked each other.   

Please God - don't let them find me, don't let this be a trick and please don't let me die!

More footsteps! More noise! Before I knew it, I was in the air and I think they thought I didn't know! Keeping the hamper pail upright as they carried me somewhere, thinking I was a complete idiot.  With the suppressed giggling and the thumping and the socking and the tribe “hushing” and “shushing” each other along with the sound of slaps to the back of the heads - didn’t help their cause one bit. I knew what was happening all right. I was on to them, but I wanted them to be happy, so I pretended to be oblivious to their treacherous plan.  

First, it was down eight stairs, then a right turn on the landing, then seven more stairs down to the first floor, then more “shushing” as if I didn’t know by this time exactly where they had carried me.

“Dirty bird. Dirty Bird!” sang the mynah bird that Liver-Lips taught curse words to, giving away the location at the bottom of the staircase in the entry.   

After sixteen paces across the entry the tired old hinges squealed as the humungous oak door hesitated to open. They were taking me outside! With a few more steps across porch, I began to get really scared knowing I was being kidnapped and not knowing where they were taking me. Just as we started down the front stairs, someone cut the cheese and brood dropped the hamper as I bounced and tumbled and rattled and shook and came crashing to a solid thud onto the concrete at street level.  

It was not a Good Vibration - I threw that in because it was the hottest Beach Boy song right now. 

By this time, I figured that they knew that I knew so I screamed a little to please them - after all, it is what they wanted...but I was just happy to be included - no matter how afraid of where the next phase would take me...

Call it a premonition...a prophetic utterance... a word of wisdom...but little did I know how right I was to be afraid. It only got worst from here. 

NEXT:  THE GREAT "TWOFER" and the FLAMING HAMPER OF DEATH...Please Reader Discretion Advised in the next episode of markie d.... oh and by the way... I'm not sure that I was feeling the "love-good vibrations" from the Wolf Pack.