Evasive Action

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Evasive Action

What’s the most significant secret you’ve ever kept? Did the truth ever come out? 

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I love keeping gifts secret! I often shop MONTHS in advance for the special thing that I want to get someone. (If I do not have a special gift- I give money.)

The Christmas of 1970… I was probably about 12… my sister 10.

I was a great prankster- at least I thought I was!

(My idea of a Christmas prank had been birthed by my father the previous year. The Christmas before, Dad had bought me a rifle for Christmas, but he had carved out a fake hunk of wood to resemble the rifle and placed it under the tree. It did not get my rifle until after all the other presents were opened!)

My sister had been begging and begging and begging (you get the idea) for a birthstone ring.

(I had my first job over the summer and over the winter I was working turkey houses. I had my own money to spend for the first time!)

I purchased her the birthstone… but I wrapped the ring box in a huge washing machine box. I filled the box with wrapped bricks and cinder blocks. I wrapped empty cereal boxes and put inside the washing machine box. Each of the empty boxes actually contained a present. They were all for the Dollar Store. Combs… hair clips… a fingernail clipper… an ember board… You had to open each supposedly empty box to see if there was a present of worth in the box.

My sister got frustrated and finally turned the box on its side and started throwing all the contents of the box up against the back wall.

Suddenly we heard a loud thud as the ring box came out of the cereal box and landed against the wall.

She saw the ring box… but the force of the contact with the wall had opened the box… the box was empty.

Talk about yelling and screaming… and bawling! She scurried …crying all the time… all over the floor trying to find the ring from the ring box.

I was laughing the entire time. (Mom and Dad weren’t!)

For the next three or four Christmases, I had to open almost all of my presents with a razor. My sister would use duct tape to completely cover my gifts.

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Written for The Daily Post: February 17, 2016. Evasive Action