70s-child: Misc. 70's remembrance:

Monday, May 10, 2010

Misc. 70's remembrance:

It was 1978, and me mom and my cousin Dee Dee (who's 2 years older than me) were sitting at the kitchen table in front of the sliding glass door, talking. Mom smokes Marlboro lights, and she was smoking a cigarette. Before she was done with it, she put it in the ashtray holder and said: "I've got to go out to the car for something", and left it in the ashtray burning. When she was out at the car, Dee Dee snuck a drag, but apparantly mom had looked around and saw Dee Dee smoking the cigarette through the glass door. When mom got back inside this was the conversation:
Mom to Dee Dee: So, how was the cigarette???
Dee Dee (shocked): I didn't smoke it.
Mom: Dee Dee, I saw you.
Dee Dee: I didn't! I swear!
Mom: Dee Dee, don't lie to me. I saw you do it.
Dee Dee (in a heartbreaking, wrenching voice): You think I'm lying!!!
Mom (laughing): Dee Dee, I saw you!
Dee Dee (same breaking, heart-wrenching voice): You don't believe me!!!!!
Mom: Dee Dee, I saw you do it!!!!
(Dee Dee starts to cry)
Mom: Ugh, whatever....

Don't expect much out of me for a quarter:

As a kid, I never got an allowance. That's something my folks weren't into. They were very generous with me, I never lacked anything, and usually when I asked for something they'd get it for me, but an allowance just wasn't going to happen. In '76, just before my folks split up, dad decided to give me a "job". It was sometime in January and the weather was pretty brutal, so he told me he'd pay me a quarter if I'd open the garage door for him when he got home so he wouldn't have to get out of the car and open it himself. We lived in a split level house (a raised-ranch), and the garage was in the lower level. The very first night, I was watching TV and I heard him pull in and stop at the garage door. I didn't want to leave my show, and it was pretty cold down there in the garage, and I was rather warm and cozy and comfortable sitting in front of the tv, so I basically ignored him. He honked. He honked again. And again. And again. Finally I heard him open the car door, open the garage himself, pull into the garage and slam the door shut. The way he slammed the door, I could tell he was angry and that I was in trouble. He came upstairs and just looked at me. Let's just say I lost my job that night, which didn't really bother me. A QUARTER??? I didn't get out of BED for that kind of money...