My parents have just been disabusing Deirdre and me of any notions we had that we were getting away with reading in bed as children. I’d actually been disabused of the notion a few years ago, but am being further disabused now, by Dad saying that he only knew we were doing it when Mom sent him downstairs to fling the doors open and shout, “AH HAH!” which even now makes me cringe in embarrassment and humiliation at getting caught. I didn’t know Mom *sent* him, sheesh. :)
Deirdre, however, is being freshly disabused, evidently. :)
So this made me tell my friends online this story: my family did this really really silly thing when Deirdre and I were kids. We got into this tradition of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance before going to bed. Or rather, after we were *in* bed. Deirdre’s and my rooms were across from each other, and Dad would stand between them, and POINT at one of us or at himself and we would say one word from the pledge and then the next POINT would say the next word and sometimes he’d point at you SEVERAL times and you’d get to say SEVERAL words, and sometimes he’d POINT at himself and forget that he was actually supposed to say something, and he’d go, “OH!” and then say his word, and somehow it got ’round to us saying, “And justice for Paul,” at the end, which was justice for Paul um I’ve forgotten his last name now who was a friend of ours and a politician who one day suddenly turned coat and went to work for British Petroleum, which, when he called my Uncle Packy, who was one of his best friends, to tell him, caused Packy to say, “Whore,” in disgust and hang up the phone, and Paul called back and said, “Fuck you!” and hung up in return, and if I recall correctly we stopped saying “justice for Paul” after that.
:)