The Mischief of Childhood

As children, it seems that our job was to annoy our parents at every possible opportunity.  Children are experts in the art of creating messes, hurting themselves, and being slightly crazy.  To add to that mix is a general air of mischief.  As Henry Fielding once said, "When children are doing nothing, they are doing mischief".  As a young child, along with my siblings, I spent a ton of time doing nothing.  My brother and I in particular were and are a mischievous duo.  We devised the most elaborate plans that were filled with bad decisions.  My other three siblings also took part in the fun, much to the pleasure of my parents.  As always, these stories of mischief are family favorites that bring us together and provide plenty of laughter. 

My brother and I have come up with wildly stupid ideas in the past that were based on principles of logic and science unknown to mankind.  My favorite of these plans happened about three years ago, so admittedly I really wasn't a child.  For some reason my brother and I decided to make a Molotov cocktail using bee spray, a plastic bottle, and a piece of string.  So we poured bee spray into the bottle, put a string in it, screwed on the cap, and lit the string on fire.  Overjoyed by our excellent plan, we seemed to have forgotten that plastic does indeed melt, and melt it did.  Very quickly the bottle blew up and lit the lawn on fire, prompting panic and a sprint for the garden hose.  That afternoon when my Father arrived home from work, he was greeted by a large burned patch of grass, which of course my brother and I had no idea about.  Since this experiment we have refined our methods and utilized better materials.  

As I mentioned in earlier posts, each year my family goes on a trip to the Outer Banks in North Carolina.  The house we rent has pool out back behind the house.  One day, my sister, brother, my cousin, and I figured out that we could leap from the second story balcony into the pool.  It was terrifying, yet it seemed like a decent idea to us.  It was a rather grand discovery that lasted all of about five minutes before we were discovered by my grandmother, and quickly escorted to have a friendly chat with irate parents.   After being scolded, we promptly ran downstairs in the basement to play catch with the billiards balls, which has claimed three of my brother's teeth the year prior.  

These stories might be stupid, dangerous, or even could be considered ill planned.  Yet they play an integral part in growing up.  As kids we make dumb decisions, and we continue making more decisions that lack common sense.  Yet as families, we can look towards the mischievousness of kids and their schemes with amusement.