The Good Old Days, Episode II

Some more oft-told Sweet family lore.  This second installment begins eerily similar to the first.

See also:
Episode I
Episode III
Episode IV
Episode V

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That time my mom went out of town and my dad forgot to feed the horses for three days. He only realized his mistake when my mom called to ask how her ponies were doing. He sprinted outside, threw them some hay, then told her, "They were hungry."

That time Annie and I were pulling faces at the car behind us on a long road trip and they flagged my parents down. We thought we were busted, but it turns out they were just letting us know that all our clothes had blown off the roof of the car. That's what you get for strapping duffel bags onto a Volvo and then driving 60 miles an hour into the wind. You'd think my parents would have learned their lesson, after spending an hour chasing Mormon underwear all over the interstate, but ten years later the same exact thing happened somewhere outside of Elko, NV. 

That time Corinne was babysitting, the people's dog diarrhead all over the house, and the only way she could think of to clean it up involved A) a brown paper bag and B) a spoon. 

That time Annie passed out, fell down a flight of stairs, had a seizure, then slid down another flight of stairs while Corinne and I laughed hysterically. My mom had called her to dinner which was met with a cheerful, "Okay!" coming from upstairs, followed by a series of loud thumps, two clonks, and a thud. By the time we ran to the staircase and realized what had happened she was waking up, attempting to lift her head, and blinking confusedly on the landing. It was the subsequent seizing that sent her sliding down the second half of the staircase. My mom was on her own for the catching, because Corinne and I were rolling on the floor. (Turns out Annie was fine. She'd just stood up too quickly and blacked out at the most inopportune moment.)

How "sex" was a bad word in our house, and that time my dad angrily hollered, "WHAT'S THIS RATED???" when someone said "sex" in a video. A church-released video. That we were watching for Family Home Evening. 

That ill-fated family trip to a Virginia ski hill aptly named "Massanutten". Firstly, my parents scored a free night's stay there plus two ski passes as a result of going to some sales presentation, yet my dad still wouldn't spring for a couple more passes so the whole family could ski together. Instead, he took us out on the hill one at a time while everyone else sat brooding in the lodge for hours. Secondly, I very nearly died that day. A handful of sad snow-making machines plus a hundred-thousand skiers turned the hill into a perilous block of ice. Oblivious to the danger, I pointed my skis straight downhill and pumped my little sticks as fast as I could. I must have been going at least eighty miles an hour when I hit a pothole and went reeling. People were leaping out of my way left and right as I careened all the way down the hillside and eventually slid to a stop at the entrance to the ski lift. My dad caught up a minute later (holding both of my skis), and, judging from my poor, contorted, limp body, assumed I was maimed for life. Somehow I was unscathed. Last time I ever went skiing, though. 

That time Annie was 100% positive that the words to a certain Disney song said, "Be our guest! Be our guest! Put our service to the dest!", and her unwillingness to back down even long after her position on the issue had been invalidated by her sisters.

The day my mom discovered our hidden stash of poop and fart jokes.  Her world was rattled. ("How could my sweet, precious little girls be so crude??")

The first time my mom ever said "crap". That vile word she refused to allow in her house. That word that caused her the deepest sorrow when one of her kids used it. That word that cost us a whole quarter every time we uttered it. She finally embraced it the day our ailing dog, Sadie, had an abdominal explosion all over the house. "THAT DOG CRAPPED EVERYWHERE!!!!" *gasp* "Mom! You said 'crap'!" "SHE DID CRAP! SHE CRAPPED EVERYWHERE! THERE IS NO OTHER WORD TO DESCRIBE WHAT THAT DOG DID TO MY HOUSE!!!!" One of the best moments of my life, for sure, a close second being when she finally gave in to the word "freaking." 

How Annie didn't want to grow up because she was afraid of heights.

That time Corinne and I saw what can only be described as a shell-less burn-victim turtle skittering at breakneck speed across a fire-scorched stretch of interstate. We both saw it. We both screamed bloody murder. Neither of us can explain it.

That time Corinne discovered something grisly in her recently-extracted-wisdom-tooth socket. She explained to me with no small measure of disgust that the doctor had apparently left a strip of hamburgered skin hanging out of the wound. Two days later I asked her if it was still there and she casually replied, "Oh, it was just food."