Tuesday, September 16, 2008

The Corner Store

Pssst! You wanna hear something about me that I am not totally proud of, but looking back I think it is kinda funny? K, since I totally trust you and I know that you won't let it go beyond this moment (you won't, right?) I am ready to share. Yay us! A new stage in our relationship- the trust stage. This is huge.

I went to Esma (yeah, I know) Lewis Elementary School in Rifle, Colorado- home of the fighting Eagles! Those were some great times. Oh, yeah, this is the school with the third grade teacher who can't pronounce orange. Remember that one time I told you about her? Yeah. See, we are even in the stage where we can remember stories together. This is awesome!

I had a great friend who lived down the hill from me and we did pretty much everything together, including a vicious fight and break-up EVERY DAY followed by a sincere make-up the next morning on our walk- uphill both ways- to school. We were total BFFs.

Most days our moms told us, "Girls, come straight home from school- no stopping at the Corner Store." And most days, we would. But then some days we wouldn't. Those days when we wouldn't go straight home we would stop at the Corner Store for a treat.

The thing is, I didn't have a job in the third grade, and therefore no moolah. So what did I do? I basically picked the pockets of my family. Loose change pretty much belonged to me whenever I "found" it around the house. Not too proud of that. Sorry Mom and Dad- even sisters- that you have to find out like this. Did you suspect? I probably owe you about $10. Do you take payments?

One day in particular, my friend- let's call her Mindy- and I stopped at the Corner Store for an after school treat and found ourselves about a quarter short for what we wanted to purchase. What would we do? It didn't take me long to hatch a brilliant plan. We would tell the clerk that we were trying to make a phone call on the pay phone outside the store and it ate our quarter before we could place our call. Genius! No fail. So that's just what we did. We told that clerk our sad story, expecting full sympathy. What we were not expecting was his response. He told us that his phone didn't accept quarters- only pennies, nickels and dimes. (Uh-oh, didn't see that one coming) But, he would get the key from the office and check it out.

The clerk disappeared in the back of the store and into the office.

You know that song that goes:
"My teacher told me I should never tell a lie,
Because a lie will bring you trouble, sure as pie.
It's an awful thing to do.
And it's true as true as true.
You'll get caught and then you'll start to cry.
You'll have a horrid, painful pounding in your head.
And you will feel your face get hot and turn bright red.
Then your heart will start to thump
In your throat you'll get a lump
And you'll feel so bad you'll wish that you could lie right down and die.
You're much better off to never tell a lie
Not even sometimes,
Remember, Never ever tell a lie....."

That totally sums it up. All these are the feelings Mindy and I experienced as the clerk walked back to his office.

What were we going to do? The only thing we could do, of course. We took off running as fast as our little Esma Lewis Fighting Eagles legs would take us. And we didn't stop. Not even when we got home. Until we were safe in Mindy's pantry. And the door was securely barricaded. With stacks of food storage. And we didn't come out. For a long time. And we listened. To every sound. Because it could be the cops.



K, bring out one of your skeletons from the deep recesses of your walk-in closet and share a "corner store" moment. Please? I'll give you a quarter.

11 comments:

Jess said...

I was in 9th grade and hadn't studied for my test. Never before had cheating ever crossed my mind, but that day I was desperate. I cheated. I don't even remember how I cheated. But my teacher was an awesome person and I respected her. Of course she caught me. I could have died of embarrassment! She didn't turn me in to the principal; I'm sure she knew that her disappointment cured my cheats for life.

I love your blog! Today I start blog stalking you..

Jess said...

oh, and my blog is www.jesscoollife.blogspot.com in case you ever want to stop by to play..

Lizdee said...

I used to eat candy out of the bulk candy bins. Well--only a couple times, and I only took a couple candy corn. I still feel a little guilty about it.

Chris said...

Wow. I never knew. My perfect wife? Wow. I'm in shock. This has rocked my world. I need time to cope.

Well, okay I DID know that story already. But it still shocks me to hear it because my wife IS so perfect, so innocent and so pure. Life's lessons are fun to experience. Good stuff.

My story is from last week or I'd share. After all, we need to protect the innocent and I don't want to open scars before the scabs have fallen off the open wounds. Skeletons in the closet will stay there for now. Well at least until I tweet it.

Mechelle said...

I had sticky fingers when I was younger. I took $150 from my parents drawer and gave the $100 to my younger brother and kept the $50 for myself to spend on "Santas' Workshop" gifts for my family. I actually had earned $4 of my own and gave it away because of the "big bucks". Of course we got caught, no one sends their kids to school with that much money. Even worse I blamed it on my brother and he got the punishment and not me. I have since learned my lesson and am reformed.

Anonymous said...

Your story reminded me of Hoyts store that was on the way home from my grade school. We had it sweet, my parents had a charge account there, so we just had the clerks write up a little yellow paper everytime we wanted something. I even bought my whole parent's Christmas and charged it to their account, pretty funny.

Anonymous said...

oooh girl! that is FUNNY STUFF!!!!

ha ha haaaaa!!!!!

Little GrumpyAngel said...

Oh, This is LOL funny! I'm sure I have some "confessions" I can make but I'm sure I wouldn't write it as funny as you did yours and I might not get forgiveness so I'll save it for later :-)

Kellie said...

I'll have to think about mine. . . . I love your story!

Me said...

A less than honest little girl who was my friend convinced me to go with her around the neighborhood collecting "money for the poor" I was probably 7 or 8. We got quite a lot of money in our glass jar. We had planned on keeping it for us because after all we were poor! Well we got to one house and when the lady opened the door she said sorry but she didn't have much to give. We could see a bunch of kids running around and not very much furniture so we decided to leave the money on her doorstep. So I guess it wasn't really lying to the other neighbors we were helping out someone who needed it...

Anonymous said...

ok, I am official blurker, but I have been laughing all afternoon at your posts! Thanks for making my day! We used to walk home from school and we would stop at the little corner store and buy lemonheads and boston baked beans (holy cow that was a long time ago)My mom didn't like us to have candy (my dad is a diabetic) so we would stop before we got home in a field full of sagebrush and hide our candy, then when we would walk to school the next morning we would pick up our candy! We were happy little kids, and to this day my mom never found out!