Why having kids is dangerous
Thursday, June 22, 2006, 6:07 PM


Before there were ATMs, there was the drive up window at the bank, and Dum-Dum suckers. Oogie would get her next couple week's worth of cash and me and Rhonda would get suckers.

When we were kids, Rhonda and I liked trying to sell our old toys, rocks or donated goods from Oogie. We'd hold kiddie garage sales on the apartment lawn that faced the main street. We'd even offer free Country Time lemonaide as a way to sucker people over.

"I don't go shopping to feed the neighborhood," Oogie would say. She loved her Country Time.

Well, but, we weren't FEEDING them, I'd want to say. Just offering them something to DRINK. Sheesh.

It quickly became evident, though, that there was no demand for our supply. Nobody wanted a ping pong paddle without the ball (but it'd make a good paddle for your kids, we'd say), shiny rocks we'd chipped off from the side of the clubhouse (the landlord loved us, he really, really did), or gently used Cherry Bomb nail polish.

So we decided to go door-to-door. If they wouldn't come to us, we'd go to them. Nobody had even heard of no solicitation back then. But first, we needed money because what if someone bought a five dollar rock with a ten dollar bill? We'd need to make change.

Oogie liked napping on the couch on Sunday afternoons, which made it easy for us to break into the Oreos or her purse. We grabbed a bunch of one dollar bills and headed off for our first big sale of the day--the apartment building across the parking lot. We would have crossed the street, but we weren't allowed.

We got lucky. We knocked on the door of a sympathetic woman who thought we were cute. She was interested in buying the Cherry Bomb and two Oreos, and she had a five dollar bill. So I carefully counted out two one dollar bills to give back to her.

She took them and gasped. "Honey, where did you get this?"

"From my mommy."

"I doubt that," she said. "Lets go see her, shall we?"

So we trooped across the parking lot and woke Oogie, whose gentle napitude morphed into one of horror at the woman's words.

"Your girls are going door to door with a hundred dollar bill. I assume it's yours."

We were sent to our bedroom without the Oreos. And even though she began hiding her purse from us, it was a long time before Oogie took a nap again.
3 Did the Unhingey Jiggy Engage in Unhingenosity
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