Don’t lie to your mother

It’s time for a confession. My mother told me when she was here over Memorial Day that she could only remember 2 times growing up when I had lied to her. This tells me that one of these three things must be true:

1. I’m a really good liar (I don’t think this one is true, because my wife can always tell when I’m trying to pull one over on her)
2. I was an angel child and really didn’t lie to my mother (this one has my vote)
3. Or finally, I now know where I got my bad memory from.

Here’s a little background about the area surrounding the house I grew up in. Behind our house is a wooded lot. For whatever reason, there are several undeveloped acres tucked between houses on 3 sides and the highway and strip malls on the far side. We would play in these woods a lot, and it was a great place for boys. We could build forts and dig “booby trap” pits and play all sorts of games back there.

The stores and buildings on the highway contain things like a 7-Eleven and a bowling alley. Now, I can’t exactly recall how old I was (6th or 7th grade?), but one of my childhood friends, Chad, and I came up with a great plan. You see, we became addicted to the video games at the bowling alley. Double Dragon … Operation Wolf … Gauntlet – good stuff.

We knew we wouldn’t be allowed to go to the bowling alley to play video games, so we had told my mom that we were off building forts in the woods. I remember one time we were walking back only to hear my mom yelling for us to come home. I don’t know how long she had been calling us, but we got away with it.

I have no idea where we got the money to play the games either, but I can recall dumping tons of quarters into those machines to try to get to the end. Perhaps from mowing lawns. I think that job started around that time.

So, sorry mom – there’s one more for your list. Please don’t ground me.