Love Songs: The Wrong Note - A Collection of Short Stories

Too Bad Dad - No Sharing

It was a Sunday in 1962, and my parents had taken a plane to Florida to see my ailing grandparents. After much discussion about my blossoming maturity and many sworn promises, it was decided that I should be left on my own for three glorious days – with the stipulation that I was to attend school on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday, come straight home, and consume all the food pre-prepared and stored for me in my mother's extraordinarily large collection of plastic Super Supperware containers.

Upon their departure, my father loaded my teary-eyed mother into the car with all of their suitcases and headed off to the airport. It was almost six o'clock in the evening before my dear parents flew the coop.

Like a convict released from a life sentence, I immediately set about writing a list of all the things I'd planned for my three-day reprieve. Going to bed early and going to school were not two of the items that populated my agenda.

Supper went well. I decided to forego the usual warm up of delightful delicacies my mother had left and instead consumed them cold. The time I saved would allow me more screen time in front of the television, I decided. Besides, it wasn't like cold food made me gag or anything, and the whole soda pop I indulged in was heavenly. That dark, fizzy sweet nectar trickled down my throat.

Burned all the way down.

Too bad Dad, I thought. No sharing tonight. Belching contentedly, I smiled. Nobody said how rude that was.

I jumped into my pajamas and turned on the television. Mother always insisted we watch The Wonderful World as a family on Sunday nights. It was an unbreakable ritual with her, carved in stone, I think. But again, not tonight.

Tonight, I'd wear out the channel button between Dennis and cartoons. I was feeling a very close affinity with my favorite menace cohort.

My plans worked perfectly. At least for a while.

I made it until a little after eight o'clock, but the warm blanket I'd snuggled under on the couch had the hypnotic effect of making my eyelids very, very, very heavy.

Monday, I awoke refreshed, full of breakfast, and steeled with resolve to skip school. Why not? When would I ever get the chance in the next hundred years of educational enlightenment that faced me?

No bath for me on Monday either. Who would know I'd foregone the soap splash? I felt sinful and deliciously decadent.

I spent the day window shopping – the entire day. It was incredible. I felt so grown-up, staring at the offerings of the shops and stores. A hot dog from a street vendor for lunch was the best I'd ever tasted. Forbidden fruit on a school day was the best!

I made it home for an early supper. I sat at the table and picked at the fare from my cold plastic bowl. I wondered if the plastic had seeped into the food. It tasted flat and bland on my tongue. The quiet in the apartment threatened to deafen me.

I decided a visit to one of my all-time favorite places on earth would lift my spirits. The park across the street from my parents' apartment was a lovely place. There I could soak up the remaining few hours of sun while engaging in my favorite pastime of people watching.

I found a particularly pretty towel, rolled it under my arm, and headed out. I'd made up my mind that no matter how much grief my mother would give me about grass stains I might smear on her linen, I'd bear it silently. It would be worth it just to flick this beauty and watch it float gracefully down onto the park's lush lawn and flop down on top of it.

Besides, three days was a lifetime. I was certain I could come up with some plausible story as to why the green stains were such an added bonus to the towel's print by then.