My gratuity? Perpetual reminders of a few minor pranks enacted nearly a quarter of a century ago!

Despite my protests, my childless brother, best known as Uncle Pervy, has taken great delight in entertaining my children since they were toddlers with “Misdemeanors of Mom” stories at family gatherings.

In his accounts, my accomplice and I, assuming superhero personas as The Destructive Duo, battled the injustices of boredom and monotony in Suburbia armed with a dozen rolls of Charmin, a carton of eggs, and other splattery substances such as fruits, gourds, and condiments.

In this setting the deeds don’t seem quite as criminal as they actually were, and my hope has been that my children never believed his fictionalized renditions. That was fantasy.

Soon tiring of lobbing small orbs, we moved on to bigger things….. en mass.

The most memorable endeavor that I can publicly confess to involved borrowing approximately 40 real estate signs and a couple of flashing construction barriers and artfully arranging them in the lawn of the object of my affection. Announcing our accomplishment with a string of firecrackers under his bedroom window, we wondered if he noticed.

The next night the signs appeared in my lawn followed by an early morning visit by our neighbor, the subdivision developer. He clearly had no grasp of the importance of our mission to free Suburbia from the grips of evil Dr. Doldrums and insisted that we return the property immediately.

We reluctantly complied -- to the best of our memories -- but with 40 signs, there may have been some confusion over WHICH houses were actually for sale…. and by whom. Redepositing the barriers also proved to be a challenge as hysterical laughter and the unmistakable pulsating orange glow filled the interior of my VW Bug.

Now in our 40’s my former accomplice is the mother of 4 and Vice President of a large corporation. I’m a mother of 6 and work-at-home medical transcriptionist.

For the most part, we use toilet paper and food items for their intended purposes and leave our neighbors’ properties alone.

We’re active in our children’s activities, PTAs, churches and communities. But we can’t resist exchanging the occasional e-mail reliving the glory days and speculating when our day of reckoning will descend upon us.

Life has been relatively quiet thus far. My only daughter is in preschool and by the time she reaches puberty I should be post menopausal. With any luck I’ll be medicated to the point that I won’t care much what she is up to unless it disrupts my sleep.

However, with a house full of genetically tweaked boys, I’ve been anticipating signs of deviant behavior for years, or at least a slight glimmer of mischief. <continued below>
 

The other day, my 17-year-old son told me about a stunt some of his friends pulled. Though quick to deny firsthand knowledge, his glorious grin proclaimed otherwise. The feat involved tossing an inflatable snowman up into a tree.

Awash with a perverse mixture of pride and shame, I bit back a smile as I whispered, “Whose yard?” Convinced that it was the result of an apparent chance encounter, I mustered up my best mom voice and scolded, “Someone gave a lot of thought to that decoration. That wasn’t nice!”

Okay, so that was lame, but I was caught completely off guard after all these years of good behavior.

Besides, I couldn’t say what I was REALLY thinking: “Inflatable yard art deserves to be messed with!” or “Up, in a tree? Zero points for originality, son. Make it legendary! How about relocating Frosty and 39 of his friends to a rooftop?”

Yet, being a responsible mom with friends in education, law enforcement, and ministry means that I must stifle those ideas. Well…. maybe I’ll share these thoughts with my favorite Executive Vandal.

To be a kid today would be an overwhelming trip into imagination wonderland for me. There was no yard art for us to toy with -- we had to make do with realty signs.

Oh what fun we could have had with the famous fat man and his sleigh, a mechanical Rudolph and a little elfin magic.

And I nearly hyperventilate when considering the numerous compromising positions the Wise Men could find themselves in! I draw the line at disturbing the baby Jesus -- but anything else is fair game.

For obvious reasons, my husband insists on keeping our lawn ornamentation simple year ‘round. During the holidays: Only lights on the eaves -- well out of my reach.

And the guy I had the crush on? Beyond my scope of understanding, he never asked me out -- I guess he was shy.

At our last High School reunion when I told him our 6th child had recently arrived, the trembling look of horror on his face exclaimed, “God allows you to instill values in a HALF DOZEN children?!”

He quickly relaxed with a smug smirk which conveyed, “That’s okay…. you don’t know where I live now.”

Rest assured, there will be another reunion. And I’m not leaving without a certain address.

Sharon Delso and her husband round up their herd of 6 in Texas.  His, Mine, and Ours range in age from preschool to college.