Lifestyles of the Young and Crazy

Last night I watched the latest episode of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, a spin off from the show Toddlers and Tiaras. My husband and I watched Alana, a.k.a. Honey Boo Boo, and her sisters roll toilet paper all over their house, inside and out, while their parents were out on a 'date.' I use the term date loosely. My husband was horrified, and all I could think was, "Ah, takes me back."

I'm the oldest of four siblings. I know there are people out there that don't buy into the whole birth order thing, but let me tell you it is absolutely true. I am a big sister to the core. I am forever worrying about the welfare of everybody and everything. I'm surprised I made it out of childhood without having a stroke or massive heart attack at the age of twelve, especially when you consider the non-stop shenanigans the four of us were always involved in. I've already told you we rode our bikes down a hill toward certain death and that a bird pooped on my tongue.

One of my friends once said, "Every time I come over here I feel like I'm on an episode of The Brady Bunch. You, your brothers, and sister are always holding a kid's meeting in the living room to plan a way out of the latest disaster." A pretty astute observation if you ask me. We are a gregarious bunch too, so you can factor in a constantly shifting cast of friends and neighborhood kids. Nobody knows how many spare kids my mom fed supper to over the years.

We did countless crazy things and got into trouble for about half of them. We created a drag strip for our bikes, part of which included the neighbor's vegetable garden. We built a tree house out of scrap lumber  collected from trash piles around the neighborhood. We dug a huge hole, so we could wallow in the mud. Well, originally we planned to dig through to the other side of the globe but figured out that was beyond our means. We only had one shovel, so we gave up and decided to mud wrestle instead. We cut a maze through the underbrush and pretended to be at war. I could go on.

Last night's show reminded me of a certain incident with fireworks. My brother Jason was always trying to scare us. He's the daredevil in our crowd, always building bike ramps, trying to fly, or tame a hawk like the Beast master. All four of us were in the living room with the fireworks our dad bought us for the  Fourth of July. Jason had a lighter and a bottle rocket with the stick broken off and was pretending to light it because he wanted us to scream and beg him not to do it. We definitely screamed. He might have been pretending, but the bottle rocket wasn't. Pandemonium broke out. Jason started flapping his arms while the rest of us screamed different things at him. I opened the front door and yelled, "Throw it outside!" He didn't. He threw it behind the couch instead.

Those five seconds lasted forever. I remember thinking the pop sounded much louder inside the house than it did outside. The room filled with gunpowder smelling smoke.  My parents, in the other room, were obviously wondering what was going on. "What are y'all doing?" Dad yelled.

I took in the scene around me. We were in big trouble, so I decided to act. I ran to the bathroom, got the can of dad's aerosol deodorant, and started spraying the entire living room like a mad woman. Now the room smelled like a cannon blast and my dad's armpits. At least I tried.

My parents arrived, and I was caught in the act. "What is going on?" mom asked. I had to think fast. "Um, Jason farted, and I was spraying this, so it wouldn't stink in here." I offered her the can and smiled sheepishly.

We all got in trouble for 'shooting fireworks in the house' and 'lying about it.' Our punishment couldn't have lasted for too long; I don't even remember what it was. We were out looking for our next adventure in no time.

I hope you're lucky enough to have brothers and sisters like mine.

If you don't, I'd like to tell you that there's always room in God's family for you. In fact, there's a space waiting, just sitting there wide open, for you and only you.

In The Shack by William Young, there is a chapter called "A Festival of Friends." Here's an excerpt:

He then heard Jesus say clearly and loudly, but oh so gently and invitingly: "Come!" And they did, the children first and then the adults, each in turn for as long as they needed; to laugh and talk and embrace and sing with their Jesus.

The New Testament constantly talks about the way that believers are brothers and sisters in Christ. So even if you haven't been blessed with an earthly family like mine, please know you have a big brother, and he's there waiting for you to call.

" By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:35 (NKJV)



Image credit:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/people/honey-boo-boo-child