Lips Ablaze and Instruments of Mass Destruction

Here is another infamous story I gathered while in southern California reminiscing with one of the older boy's favorite victims.  The Wolf Pack were generous...no, not generous  - they were lavish with terribly creative pranks. John said that every time he came over he had to prepare himself for whatever the Dahlins would throw at him.  My crazy older brothers were equal opportunity offenders and nobody was safe in our house.

I can't lie and must admit that whenever I was not the one being lowered in a suitcase, shot at, buried in a pit, or dropped over a cliff  and they were busy cleverly torturing someone other than me - I was very happy and yet also felt a tinge disappointed for not getting my adrenalin fix - (That's why I figured that I must be a little retarded)!

Here is a Picture of John telling me his story... the audio however, did not get transferred, but you can see the pained look on his face.

This story like most of our stories has a long back-story...which I'll attempt to make very short. It begins somewhere between Lennon envy and The Sound of Music.

Look at the Lennons! Look at how cute they were, and all of them sing! All of them! The Lennon sisters sing like angels, The boys sing, Mimi sings and Kippy the baby brother - even he sings!  It just wasn't fair!

When God was handing out singing voices - I think the Lennons were in line first and God ran out by the time He came to the Dahlins. None of us could sing! Not one of us could hold a tone or sing a note on key!  Look at 'em...just look at them!

Look at us! Does it look like any of us can sing? 

Well, to make matters worse a couple years ago, out comes The Sound of Music. My mom saw the movie a hundred times and wished we were like the singing Von Trapp family or the Lennons - with us, it was just lemons instead.  

So my poor mom, thought that if we couldn't sing - by golly, at least we would all play a different instrument and be a 9 person orchestra. She fantasized that other mothers from Saint Marks church would come into our house and we would line up on the entry stairs and play "So long, fair-well...auf wiedersehen ...good bye" in our symphonic nine piece orchestra."  This was her dream! 

Tony with his Clarinet

Karl with his Trombone

Kris with his Coronet

Kurt with his Trumpet

Erick with his Violin and Piano

Madeline with the Viola 

Me with a squeaky hand-me down ancient Clarinet

Karin on the Piano! 

All of us taking lessons at Saint Marks...

Dude this could have been great! Except for the part about this being the Dahlins. 

The instruments were turned into weapons of mass destruction as we used them for warfare and to beat each other up with.

Besides the foul-mouthed mynah bird that cussed, our entry also had a piano, a couple other pieces of furniture and a million of these unused and banged up instruments in their dusty, old, black cases that had been piled into what looked like siege ramp that reached the top of the grand staircase. 

As John told the story, he said he was invited in by Kurt to play his trumpet!  Now mind you, this was the very place that we had electrocuted poor John in another one of our horrible pranks(Blog 7/11/13)!  There was no reason for him to say yes! He checked to make sure no electrical wires were attached to the the thing and against his better judgement he acquiesced to Kurt's nagging, persistent, insistence - And try, John did!  ONLY...

ONLY... Kurt had smeared the mouth piece with jalapenos peppers and Tabasco hot sauce! 

Obediently, but foolishly, John put his lips on the mouth piece and blew!  He blew for about a second when he threw the trumpet and howled like a lone wolf at a full moon.  The mynah bird cussed as Kurt rushed to John's rescue with a cup of water. John took the cup and hastily threw it down his gullet only to find it had been laced with more Tabasco hot sauce!   UGHHHHHhhhhhhh

The Wolf Pack cheered!  

John howled and ran around in circles like a mad dog...So as it turned out, one of our hated instruments was finally put to good use. At least, that's what the Wolf Pack thought!

I wanted to laugh, but ducked and took cover for I was having a pre-pubescent PTSD Flash back from a incident that nearly killed me when I was just a little boy! That story next time! 

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