Childhood Story #1: The Great Sockball Incident

My brother and I were extremely close growing up, and we remain so to this day. Our close relationship could be attributed to a myriad of factors, but the most important factor would probably be the absence of extended family during our childhood. The families of our friends always seemed to have a congregation of grandparents, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, cousins, grandkids, second cousins, third cousins (now, what the heck IS a third cousin, anyway), etc. visiting, and to this day, my parents bemoan the fact that my brother and I were denied that particular experience. As I already mentioned, however, the result of this was the close bond that was forged between my brother and me. Please do not misunderstand-things were not always smooth sailing between us, but in any relationship, there are bound to be ups and downs. I always knew, and I still know, that my brother has my back when the chips are down, and that kind of knowledge is EXTREMELY reassuring in an uncertain world.

I have promised to share with you all some of our (mis)adventures from our childhood, and today’s story will be the Great Sockball Incident. I wish that I could remember our exact ages at the time, but let’s just say that I was 8 and my brother was 12. Until my brother left for college, we shared a bedroom. The bedroom was painted a bright powder blue with matching light blue shag carpet (ahh the 70s). When you entered the bedroom, you were on my side of the room. The right and left wall each had large windows, and our twin beds were in the middle of the room. There was a nightstand in between the 2 beds where our solitary alarm clock sat. My job was to set the alarm and wake my brother (truly ironic since now, as a physician, my brother is programmed to wake up in the odd hours of the morning). There was a significant amount of space between the 2 beds, and this factor resulted in a game that had tragic (and comedic) consequences for all parties involved in the mayhem that I will now recount.

My brother and I had our chores, one of which was folding our laundry. This meant that I folded the laundry because I was the younger brother (you younger siblings know EXACTLY what I am talking about), but my brother was cool in that he kept me company while I worked. My brother is also great at coming up with fun ideas. Only now do I realize that these ideas usually ended up with the two of us in hot water, but at the TIME they were fun! On this particular day, I was folding socks. For some reason, we always ended up with loads of single socks, but instead of tossing the socks away, we would put them back in the laundry pile and wash them again. Maybe we were expecting the lost sock to magically reappear and join its mate in the laundry, but whatever the case, it never made any sense. My brother looked at the pile of single socks (a significant pile of multi-colored socks), and decided that we should just combine all of them into a single large sock ball. That made sense to me, as I was sick of dealing with them every time I folded laundry, and my brother’s idea would get them out of the way once and for all. We started to sift through the laundry pile to find the single socks, and as we discovered them, we would add them to the sock ball. By the end of our task, the sock ball was of a significant size and weight. My brother remarked that it was almost as large as a volleyball. At that comment, 2 identical lightbulbs exploded in each of our heads, and we decided that it was PERFECT for volleyball. The only problem was that we had no net, we were inside, and we were to remain inside per Mom’s orders. What to do?

My brother came up with the ingenious plan of indoor volleyball. Remember that space between the beds that I talked about? Well, that space became the “net” and the floor near the opposite windows became the opposing sides. My brother and I started a rousing game of indoor sock volleyball. We were tossing it back and forth, leaping and diving to make saves, and generally having a great time. We would alternate serves, but we were not worried about breaking anything. I mean, it was a sockball, right? Soft, malleable, and harmless!

Wrong.

After one of my brother’s serves, I tried to hit it back and I couldn’t. The next thing I heard was the sound of shattering glass behind me. I did not look behind me but at the horrified expression on my brother’s face. He said nothing. I kept calling his name. He remained silent and pointed at the window behind my head. I turned around and saw a GAPING HOLE in the middle of the window, with jagged cracks radiating out from the hole in all directions.

Thought #1: A SOCKBALL did that? COOOOOOL!

Thought #2: OH CRAP! WE ARE SOOOOOO DEAD.

There was no way to hide our problem. All of the windows were tied into the burglar alarm that would be activated in the evening, so my parents had to be notified. We slowly went to Mom and told her that we needed her. She entered the bedroom and immediately saw the broken window. Her Mom instincts click in, and she immediately was concerned that my brother and I were hurt by broken glass. Once she realized that we were unharmed, however…umm…..

[as I maintain a reader friendly blogsite, I will (to paraphrase Sam Clemens) draw the curtain of charity upon my mother’s rage]

When the yelling stopped. my Mom asked my brother and I how it happened.

My brother: “We were playing volleyball with a ball made out of single socks and it went through the window.”

My mother: Silent. The corners of her mouth were twitching, but she maintained the “Mom glare.” She asked my brother to repeat what he said.

My brother: “We were playing volleyball with a ball made out of single socks, and it went through the window.”

My Mom (the corners of her mouth still twitching): “Tell the truth and you will not be punished as much.”

I asked to be excused and then quickly ran outside to retrieve the sock ball. My parents always held my brother responsible for any such mishaps (this is the BENEFIT of being the younger sibling), and my Mom proceeded to read my brother the riot act about lying. I then returned to the bedroom, sockball in hand, and wordlessly handed it to Mom. She took one look at it, turned around, and walked (sockball in hand) out of the bedroom and into my parents bedroom. She then closed the door. My brother and I were terrified. WE WERE SOOOO DEAD. WHAT WOULD DAD SAY?

My Mom stayed in their room until my Dad got home. We heard him enter the house and go to the room to change as usual. We then heard my parents in urgent conversation, with words such as “window” and “socks” being thrown around. We held our collective breath. What would Dad do to us? What would Mom do to us?

To this day, I can still remember the peals of laughter from both of my parents that emanated from their bedroom door.