WHO SHOT MUM
WHO SHOT MUMAs I look back on my youth, I fondly remember our family’s Saturday night ritual. Of course, over the years, most of these nights tend to run together – every Saturday was the same. Except for one particular night, that is – a night that stands all alone in my memory. After all, it was the night that Mom was shot. She certainly was not hurt, but if she reads this story and figures out which of her son’s shot her, that son might not be getting much in the way of Christmas presents this year. Confused? You should be. Let me start at the beginning. The year was 1972. We were living in a small town in western Pennsylvania. There were three of us: Roger was 15 and Rory was 10. I was the middle c***d, and 13 years old at the time. Now that my brothers and I were older, we no longer needed a babysitter. Given the way we had always tormented babysitters in our youth, it had been a while since my parents had found anyone willing to watch us. And so when we were old enough to stay home without a babysitter, my parents started to go out on Saturday evenings. They had been doing it for several years when the shooting occurred. “Geez Carole, would you hurry up!” Dad yelled up the stairs. “We are going to be late.” I didn’t need to look at the clock to know that it was exactly 8:17 p.m. It was illegal bahis Saturday night, and like every other Saturday night, Mom and Dad were heading out to see a movie after dinner. As I mentioned in the beginning, every week it was the same routine. We would finish dinner around 7:45 p.m. or so. Mom would then go up and start to get ready to go out with Dad. While Mom got ready, Dad took the family dog, Misty, for a walk around the neighborhood. It was always the highlight of Misty’s week. Misty loved my Dad. Dad and Misty made it home from their walk by exactly 8:00 p.m. so that Dad could watch Archie Bunker in “All in the Family.” He walked in the door with Misty and jetted straight toward the family room to sit on his favorite chair. “All in the Family” was the one show that Dad watched religiously – nothing came between him and that show. What’s more is that Mom made an exception to the “no food in the family room” rule – she let us have our dessert in the living room during the show. When the second set of commercials came on at 8:17 p.m., Dad would yell up to Mom to hurry up. They needed to leave right after the show ended at 8:30 p.m. in order to get to the movie theater, buy tickets and get seated for the 9:00 o’clock showing. After all these years, we could set our clock by their illegal bahis siteleri routine. The night that Mom was shot, our parents were going to go see “The Poseidon Adventure.” Depending on how it was, Mom and Dad said they would take the three of us to see the movie that Sunday. Mom wanted to make sure that it wasn’t too scary. The movie was rated PG, but it was listed as an action thriller. Remember, Rory was only 10 years old at the time. That night, while Dad was taking Misty for a walk, all three of us boys did the dinner dishes. Who did what was always up for grabs. Mom had divided the chore of doing the dishes into three sections, so that everyone could help. Dad decided to make a game of it by having everyone draw cards when it came to chores. That night, Rory had drawn the low card, so he had the task of taking all of the dinner plates to the sink and clearing off the table. Whenever Rory chose the low card, he would clean off the table and then immediately take off to play outside until we dragged him in for bed. Roger drew the middle card, which meant he had the task of bringing the dessert dishes in from the family room and washing them after “All in the Family.” I picked the high card, and as a result, I was in charge of putting the dinner dishes into the dishwasher canlı bahis siteleri and washing the pots and pans. I was also in charge of bringing everyone dessert in the family room, which hopefully would be before the start of the show. Tonight was not one of those nights though as the pots had taken a little longer and I walked in with dessert right after the opening rendition of “those were the days.” At 8:28 p.m., Dad let out his final plea to Mom to hurry up. “Carole, would you please hurry!” As soon as “All in the Family” ended, Dad always gave that yell. As always, Mom answered, “I’ll be right down.” A minute or so later, Mom headed down the stairs. Unlike normal weeks, the dishes from dessert were still in the family room, because Roger was on the phone with his girlfriend, Ginger. Much to Dad’s dismay, Mom was unable to just leave them there for Roger to do when he got off of the phone. Instead, she grabbed the dishes and took them into the kitchen to wash them. That was when it happened. As Mom turned on the faucet, a stream of water came out of the sprayer and shot her right in the face, ruining her makeup. Someone had placed tape on the sprayer so that when the water was turned on, instead of coming out of the faucet, the water would come shooting out the sprayer, soaking the person in front of the sink. Fortunately, Mom really wanted to see the movie, and given the theme of the movie, she felt that the drowned rat look might be acceptable. No one ever got blamed for doing it. However, the answer is clear. … Who shot Mom?