Rainbird

We had a partially finished basement.  Most of the rooms were forbidden to us.  We knew this by the hooks and eyes at the tops of the doors which were meant to keep us out.  This problem was easily solved with a broom handle.  We just pushed the hook up through the eye and opened the door into a brave new world until mother came back.

Dad placed 4 boxes of ripe peaches on the cool cement floor in the basement hallway.  To me, they smelled like summer.  Warm and sweet.  And they looked like the sun itself. 

It started innocently enough.  Mother said she was going out for just a bit.  We went down to steal a sweet peach or two.  One rolled to the floor with a gentle thud.  Lin tossed it to Dan, but it hit the wall instead and slid down very slowly.  Dan threw one at Lin and it rolled under the couch.  I overshot and mine landed on the windowsill.  Pretty soon peach missiles were hitting the wall and sliding down in sweet gloppy blobs up and down the narrow hallway.  Oh the sweet smell of an orchard!  And then we heard the car in the driveway.  We switched off the light and ran upstairs.

When mother saw the peach covered wall she shrieked, “You will clean this up, I do not care how”!  And that was her first mistake.  Her second mistake was getting back in the car and leaving.

We stood there a few minutes puzzling over it.  I found a bottle of dish soap by the kitchen sink and a stool, and we put a squirt of dish soap next to each peach bomb.  Then we opened the basement window and hauled in the hose with the sprinkler head on it.  Dan ran outside and turned it on.  We squealed with delight as it started to go “ch ch ch” and bubbles formed; indeed cleaning up our mess.

So we left.  The three of us went next door to play twister with the neighbor children.  Mother pulled up in the car some time later, followed by Dad in his car.  When the phone rang, we ran home for dinner.

There was no dinner!  Mother and Dad were at the bottom of the stairs calf deep in a soup of peaches and foam.  The couch was floating nearby along with various other basement items.  Dad was yelling and trying to force open a door which was secured with a hook and eye, and mother was in hysterics – I could not say whether she was laughing or crying, maybe both.  Two mops lay on the steps above them.  The drain was locked inside that room, and the space at the bottom of the door was clogged with peaches and peach pits.

We did finally push all the water down that little drain hole.

Be careful what you say to your children, and problem solve together.  That’s my advice.