A true story about a night of teenage mischief and nearly getting caught that could've been avoided from the start.
To start off with, I want you to know that I was a good kid. I was mostly shy, and would never think to do what my friend's friend did. It's just not in my vocabulary so to speak.
If you've been following along with my other true stories, then you know my father was an officer in the Navy, and that I had been to Italy for a time. We had gotten back to the states, interestingly enough, right back to Pensacola, Florida.
When I arrived, I immediately met one of my best friends ever. He and his family lived across the street, and we were both the same age, instantaneously becoming friends. He was from Australia, and always had his foot out of the door, ready to take on the next adventure.
This particular night occurred about a year later when we were thirteen or so. I was spending the night and his older sister was going to perform a mime act at the school talent show that evening, which my friend turned down for the both of us.
His parents trusted the both of us and allowed us to stay while they all left. I knew it was going to be a fun night, figuring that we would probably camp out in his backyard. This neighborhood had a lot of pine forest surrounding it, and his backyard led into one of them where he and his father had built a mega treehouse.
It had several uncovered triangular platforms interconnected among the pines with one being a square platform that had a lean-to style roof, and a really large platform next to it that was like a deck that had a net-like hammock. There was even a zipline from the tallest platform down to the large tree that was in their backyard. It was really awesome.
Instead, my friend had planned ahead to meet up with a friend of his that I had never met. He was a year or two older I think. The night started off innocently enough as we made our way to the local convenience store, which, at a mile away, was the closest business to us.
Upon arriving, we bought some sodas and candy, but my friend's friend bought a 3-pack of condoms. This was the first time I had ever seen one, and I think I vaguely understood what they are. I didn't hit that part of puberty until about a year later.
We were each given one and I remember that my friend was really excited about this purchase, and this hastened our exiting of the store. I vaguely remember overhearing them talk about what they had planned with their condom as we walked back to my friend's house via the shortcut which goes through a few backyards.
We had gotten to one of the streets connecting to the long entrance road to the neighborhood that wound through a small pine forest and continues on passed our houses. We were coming close to this one house that had a unique driveway that went behind and around it. It was at that point that my friend's friend said that he had to pee.
I remember hearing my friend giggling about this, but I had no clue as to why. I stopped and pulled out my unopened condom and considered opening it just to see what it looked and felt like, but before I could muster the gumption, my friend was excitedly exclaiming how his friend had peed in his.
I honestly didn't understand why this was so cool or fun. I remember struggling to understand the significance, and didn't even realize that he had made a pseudo-water balloon. All I knew was that they were both really excited about it.
The excitement was quickly aborted due to a car coming our way and we calmed down and got onto the sidewalk as we were passing the house I mentioned. I was looking to see if more cars were coming when I heard a splash, and then my friend said something like, "Oh, shit! Run!"
We all started running down the sidewalk heading toward the entrance road. We had passed a couple of houses when another car was turning down our road and we quickly slowed to a walk. I was hoping that those people weren't home, which was impossible to tell since their garage was in the backyard.
The next thing I know, we're running again, and when I looked back, there was a man standing outside of the door yelling, "Hey!", and looking very angry. My friend told us to follow him as he headed into the pine forest on our side of the entrance road.
Despite being full of pines, this was Florida, and there was plenty of thicket-like foliage, not to mention some of the spiders we could've run through. Luckily, I wasn't cut or pricked too much, and as we came into a small clearing, my friend told us to hunker down and be quiet. I was so scared at this point that I was doing anything he told me to do.
I could hear the man getting near to us, but it seemed like he made a turn and went around our clearing. He sounded very close, and then a woman was calling out to him, asking if he wanted a flashlight or to let the dogs out.
I was really freaking out at this point, but my friend suddenly told us to run, and so we ran. We followed him, and to my surprise, we suddenly popped out of the forest into a front yard of a house I didn't know existed. They had a garden in their yard with one of those low-lying wires as a border. It caught my foot just right and my foot slipped out of my shoe.
I turned to grab it, but my friend told me to leave it, and so I did. So at that point, I had on one shoe and one sock. We kept running and soon were on the other entrance road that led to the adjoining neighborhood. If we had turned left on it, we could've gone back to the convenience store.
We turned right and ran across the unfinished median. Unbeknownst to me, this had a weed growing all over that had these little spiked burrs, several of which got stuck into my sock. I had to take it off and so had to continue with one shoe and one bare foot.
The three of us were all very athletic, and so we were in the clear at this point. At least, I thought we were. My friend was still being cautious and continued to have us run down this long entrance road and into the adjoining neighborhood. He assured us that he knew of several shortcuts to get us home quickly.
As we got into the neighborhood, we heard a car coming and quickly ducked and slowly reciprocated the car's movement around a very large and fat fir tree. It either wasn't our pursuer, or they really didn't see us. I choose to believe the latter as I thought we nailed that stunt. For some context, though, I had never dodged a car before that night.
I don't remember too much of how we shortcutted home, but his friend parted ways at one point, and after hopping through two more yards, we were on our road, and I finally relaxed at this point.
When we got to his house, we only had a few minutes to relax on his couch and laugh about what had just happened before his family came back. They had left just after her performance since his younger sister needed to go to bed.
I'm pretty sure we said that we hadn't done much, and as his older sister went to her room, we both followed her. He was anxious to tell her about what had happened, and I remember her getting a big kick out of it.
I can honestly say that I never hung out with my friend's friend again, except for a party that I went to where he ended up getting kicked out of anyway.
I'm really glad that we didn't get caught, although I'm sure that karma has caught up with that kid. We had a chance to avoid it all, but I feel like fate had other plans. Possibly one of the dumbest things of which I was sadly a part.
I can only imagine that that family thinks that we all malevolently schemed to vandalize their house. I don't even think my friend would've done such a thing as mischievous as he was. He was a wild one, but most of our stunts never hurt anyone except us maybe.
Thank you so much for reading. Please consider leaving some feedback. Have a wonderful day....[[|:-)
I really like the fact that you stay out of trouble and don’t want to upset anyone. That speaks volumes of your character. I try to do the same. Interesting story.
That certainly was a mischievous act. The kind that preteens tend to do with the serious business of prophylactics. You made me wonder what happened to that shoe and why your mother didn't find out that it was missing, providing some karma for what you did. But you didn't throw your condom, did you?
I believe you are writing about sand burrs. They can be really annoying.
You should have used past instead of passed at one point. And, indenting the first line of each paragraph will make it easier to read.
Reminded me of dumb things done in my book, Midcentury Tales, serialized here, chapter by chapter. Remembering the Halloween night, when I, unfortunately got in the car with some of my high school buddies when they drove around town committee pranks, misdemeanors and one high crime. They grabbed a rural mailbox on a tripod stand and carried it 1/2 mile down the road and hung it on a bridge to spite a neighborhood high school girl.
One night, after a church fellowship night with a scavenger hunt just after Easter. We gathered a lot of Easter eggs. Some guy had the bright idea to throw them at the junior high school across the street. While we were doing it. The principal, out for an evening walk, saw us doing it. Scared us half to death when he called out, "What are you guys doing?" And then followed with, "I know you're all good kids. Just clean it up for me and I won't put it on your records."
After a long awaited weekend visitation caused by false allegations of sexual abuse, Glen got to see his children for the first time in over two months. He promised them that they would never be apart again and then they disappeared.
At the young of age of seven, Jill's mother Eve takes her for regular sessions to a child psychologist for treatment of her anxiety, which only makes her behavior worse. When she reaches her teens, she starts drinking and then smoking marijuana with
