Thursday, June 18, 2009

Childhood Temptations. The Devil Made Me Do It Mom.

When our family moved to near St. Louis in the 1960s the city had just built this fine new mall called Northwest Plaza. A trip there was like heaven, all kinds of sights and smells you'd never experienced before. The tool and sporting goods department at Sears, ice cream from Walgreen's soda fountain counter, Orange Juliuses.



On one such trip our moms parked us kids near the escalator to wait on the bench while they looked at washing machines. Right next to the escalator was a huge awesome water fountain, about 50'x50' with water running down from the ceiling on tiny plastic tubes. Everyone tossed coins in the 1 foot deep fountain so it was like looking at a broken open piggy bank to us poor kids.

With visions of a new model and more baseball cards my friend Will and I made a deal with his little brother Mark to get him to go fetch some coins while we watched for our moms or any store employees. This included the usual bribe to my lil sister to keep her quiet.

With a little encouragement Mark hopped over the low rail and was sloshing around pretty good in no time, we were even smart enough to remove his shoes and roll up his pants to evade any questioning later. He must have been up to around 3 or 4 bucks when I heard my mom holler.

Poor Mark didn't even get half way over the rail before his mom snatched his azz right back over to the bench. His mom lit into him right there. Naturally he only held up to questioning for about 2 minutes and we got it later back home.

Needless to say it was a long time until we got asked again if we wanted to go to the Mall.

Got any childhood temptation stories?

1 comment:

Albert A Rasch said...

I am getting a little tired now...

Your post was ripped off. It is happening to a lot of folks.

Ripped Off

Best regards,
Albert
PeTA: Cruel to Children
Where do Donations to the HSUS Go?.