18 + 1

It's Bessie's Birthday!

She is 18 years old today...which reminds me of another story.

This is going to be one of "The Club" stories...

"The Club" had a lot of rules...mostly made up in the spur of the moment.

We used to walk very slowly at the back of Mama's house... in the dark. It was supposed to be for strengthening our courage. So was our daring each other to light up firecrackers, each one larger than the next.

We had to collect "weaponry." Carlos had a collection of bullets ( which he eventually buried into the ground and never found again) I had a collection of whittled "darts" made of assorted materials from wood to bamboo. Eric never started. I think he was starting to get interested in more "techy" things...

...which was probably why Carlos and I would be the president and vice president of the club ( we would swap every so often) and Eric remained our Mascot.

One of our more "useful" rules had a protective aspect. When one of us was in trouble, we were supposed to yell out our battle cry and the other two were supposed to come running to help out the one in a jam.

Anyway, one of our birthday traditions was spanking the celebrant. One hit for every year of the celebrant's life and one extra for good luck. I'm not sure who started this and when it began but we did it to each other nonetheless.

On one of my birthdays, We went to Philippine Columbian to celebrate. We rarely went there...maybe because there was no golf course. They had a lot of amenities though. Tennis courts, bowling lanes, exercise room, a couple of pools and they had the best cream of mushroom soup ever.

Personally, I didn't like the place because the pool was never deeper than 5 feet and they always made you wear those tight plastic swimming caps. What was the point of swimming if the pool was warm from the sun and your hair never got wet? You might as well have just been walking in the rain under an umbrella.

So it was my birthday, and I knew my spanking was coming. I really didn't mind because it usually wasn't very hard. We were in the pool, Joann was standing around. Tasha was doing laps back and forth across the length of the pool. Carlos and Eric decided that they had had enough and went exploring.

All of a sudden I saw Joann and Tasha advancing towards me. I knew it was coming. Jo Ann had an evil glint in her eye and a smirk on her lips. (EEVILL) I look for Carlos and Eric and they were nowhere to be found.

I try to swim away but they catch me quickly. SMACK! (One), SMACK (Two) and suddenly, I spot Carlos and Eric come out of the Gym

"CLUB MEMBERS ATTACK!!!"

I'm sure everyone else in the entire club looked at me strangely. (What the hell?!)

And Carlos and Eric came a-runnin'.

We eventually started having a massive splash fight running and spraying water everywhere.

It was fun.

I don't think I ever got my complete complement of smacks that day.

Bessie-girl,

when you get home...

...18 + 1 (WHA-HA-HA-HA)

water water everywhere...