I have a dream.

I've been out with Marianne 4 times tonight. Then an extra time with Georg. We finished the paintjob on the patio(not sure what it is called, really, it's a wooden veranda at ground level with 7 ft windbreaks around 2 of the sides) and I had to keep Marianne upstairs. We keep her in our bedroom(on the floor only, yes I am a hard woman in these matters) with the garden door open. It works brilliantly and we have never experienced more than one accident, when she peed on Georg's blankie the first night). We are going to keep at it for as long as we can stand it – seeing that temps already drops to 10 C, that might get difficult in a month or two.

I'm too tired to write, really, but it is always then! I get creative and have fun writing.

I dream of a new sofa up at Vintland. The old one we have now, is a sofa that lived his late years down at my parents' old house. They got him from their elderly neighbours who were getting a new one. Let's call him Truls. Truls is living his AFTERLIFE with us up there. I swear you can feel the strain of every pair of bollocks that has put their imprint on this poor ugly thing. 

By now I bet half the stuffing left is doghairs. And he IS hideous. It is exactly the kind of sofa a dog would love. Georg loves it. I'm prepared to bring the ugly corpse home to Mandal and let my house be his mausuleum, as long as I get a new sofa in the cottage. It will mean no dining table, but faaak! 

I want one more like this

I want a soft sofa with high backing so bad. It's just that, even though I generally don't want the dogs in the furniture at home, Vintland isn't home. It's our haven. It's been Georg's haven. It was Marianne's first home and her haven. It should continue to be so. There is absolutely no way I could ever deny Georg climbing up on our lap on the three-seater. No. Fucking Way! I don't want to, either. I love having a monster of a laptog drooling all over me. I know it sounds insane and I know I am a walking contradiction of terms, but there you have it. It's just how I am knitted together. (I don't think we should try to understand me, it will give you headaches, believe me, I've tried for years. ...bad headaches)

I like a clean house, but I also like a house you would immediately feel comfty in. I think most people actually do. Visitors rarely sit in our sofas, they slouch in our sofas. I do have a very relaxed relationship with mess. I can let it flood my table and not care one bit. And then BAM! it's enough and I can't STAND IT ANYMORE! And I race around speed-cleaning like I'm the energizer bunny in those old commercials, before I collapse back like a sack of potatoes, again, taking part of the conversation, watch TV, whatever. 

Mental much?!? 

I've given up a bit on the floors. I vaccuum on average 3, or times a week. Depending on weather. I wash them once, or twice. I don't think I have had a house where doghairs aren't floating around in the air, behind and under furniture, in the corners, behind doors, you name it! since we got Doris 18 years ago. I don't allow babies on the floor unless I bring up a clean blanket for them to lie on. 

We kept Simen in a crib the first months of his life. They would have eaten each other up. Literally. Their language as babies was synonymous with mouth. It was disgusting. By the time he was 6 months, I was like; Meh! Eat each other and share food for all I care, we've all got the same shite anyhew! It may have had to do a little with Simen having had the whooping caugh and wasn't healed until then and I had suffered 6 months on very little sleep. 

My mother was ready to throw the child service peeps down my throat. “ELI!” That kid isn't going to talk when he turns 1, he'll bark! Are you aware of that?!?” 

He didn't. He did pant as one to get Doris' attention when she walked into the room. It was hilarious. And a little creepy. They were the best of friends who helped each other do mischief on a daily basis until they were 3 years old. 

When he started school and came home to an empty house, he had to open the door while hiding behind it. He said it was because Doris would be standing waiting and jumped out the door in such excited joy she ran down whomever(whoever? No, that doesn't sound right) was standing there. 

I think she made Helene feel safe too. She was very protective. In a happy whimsical way.

Simen has told me that he never felt like he was coming home to an empty house. “Because Doris is there, of course, mom.” He used to exclaim with a tired-of-life look that did so not fit his age, whenever I asked him if he ever felt alone as a kid. Hey, I'm a mom, all working moms will enter the pit of guilt a time or millions!

Oy, I'm rambling. Why didn't any of you stop me?

What I really meant to say is I need your help.

I need some advice. I want to make a sheet cover of sky leather, or something similar and just as easily cleaned, type of sheet cover. Problem is, I have no idea how to make one. Have any of you guys done this? Seen it done? Know a good site?

I can't afford it yet, but that doesn't mean I can't make plans. [satisfied evil low cackle] I am totally going to manipulate hubby into agreeing to this. 

Oh, yeees.




PS! Helene and her boyfriend came home for the weekend. It was also the weekend of the annual sea food festival. The 3 of us walked to town and ate lunch. I had the best sea food soup and fresh baked bread I have had in a year. It was heavenly, I tell yahs! Simen stayed home with Marianne, because he was going out with friends later and didn't mind staying behind. It was a nice weekend. I think the boyfriend at least didn't hate it, even though he suffered terribly from his allergies. Thankfully there has not been dogs in their bedroom and he was able to seek refuge there when it got bad.

PPS! Oh, and Marianne is well again. No more UTI.

Who's your hero(ine)?

I've been down in the dump this week. Inflammation and fever drains me like nothing else. It wasn't unexpected as things have been crazy and busy, but in a good way and absolutely worth it. We gathered the whole gang - both sides - Saturday for an outdoor day of funness. The weather gods were on our side and people were happy. Georg, Olga and Vera  were playing on the field and we all took joy in watching them, until Olga found the mudhole and Georg - being a show-off kind of guy - impressed the 4-legged ladies by morphing into a mud monster. Us 2-legged ladies weren't all that impressed, as we don't really consider mud as a good alternative for salad dressing. When I had to drag him down to the lake to rinse him off, he  ALMOST looked like he regretted the stunt. There he impressed me with his almost-swimming and we became best friends again and were both happy walking back home.

I wish I had some photos and videos to show you, but I'm afraid I've misplaced the camera...again...I know. It's suspicious. Could it be the house imp being at large and having his mischievous fun again? Could it be the hubby fearing he'll be caught on camera with a bad hair do? Or, could it be just me being my usual skitterbrained self? Mysteries!

Anyways, as I've been so out of spoons (explanation link ) that I've been more or less unable to communicate with the outside world, I've been reading blogs instead. It's a kind of communication, right?!?  I love checking my blog list when I get up at 6 am too tired to think and too stiff and achy to do much of anything else, other than try staying awake.

This morning I read The Bloggess and her story about Amelia. It got me thinking. Did I have a heroine who inspired me to do the things I didn't think I could, or didn't think I dared? I was an anxious child. I never slept over at friends until I was 10 or older and there were only two girls I trusted to sleep over at our house, although I much preferred that. My mother being a ..character, that was a big risk, believe me. I was used to being alone as we were up at the mountain farm a lot and was happy in my own private company.

I remember I was so anxious when I was to start school I got sick. So sick the doctors wanted to have me put in hospital due to dehydration. That thought scared me so much that I forced myself to keep down fluid and drag myself to school. Most children had their mothers follow them and stay with them the first week of school, but my mother didn't believe in that sort of 'babying big girls' and neither did she have the time as she was busy with my new born sister. To muster enough courage to get out of bed and walk to school I thought of my little heroine, Little My. She was very small, but fiercely determined  and did stuff even if she was afraid. I wanted so badly to be like her, I managed to overcome a lot of my anxiety and fears.

Being a child, it didn't really matter that she was a fictional character in a book. She was what I needed. She was an inspiration and when I think about it, she has remained an inspiration even after I became a grown up. I still find I'm telling myself that it is alright to be scared as long as you keep on going, as long as you don't give up trying. I had simply forgotten where those words came from.

 Now I know and I will remember. Also I am so grateful to my parents for reading me stories about Little My and Phoo when I was a frightened little girl at 3 and to my dad in particular, because he had the patience to re-read them again and again until I learned to read on my own.

Do you have a personal hero or someone who's been an inspiration to you and helped you reach goals? I hope you do. I think it's a pretty useful thing to have.

...and because I've sort of promised myself not to make this a whiny blog and to not end my posts on a sad note


Another blog I read, mainly because she cracks me up and is my kind of crazy, is Jenny from the Blog I love this woman! She's so funny. Who'd have known Isabella Rosselini did animal porn?!? I've always admired her as an actress, now she's on my list of heros and she's there to stay! 

A trip down memory lane

We’ve been watching Coupling lately and some episodes are about pregnancy and birth and all the little shocks you go through during your first time pregnancy. It brought me down the memory lane. 

We were quite young and ignorant of most things concerning pregnancies in general and births in particular. We were students and couldn’t afford any prenatal classes. We lived far away from most of our family and could therefore continue our blissfully ignorant existence too, until hard earned experience killed our naïve ignorance…

5 weeks into the pregnancy I went through an emergency surgery as one of my ovary tubes exploded into smithereens. (This is a story of its own for another time). Obviously I survived and I didn’t lose the baby either. Otherwise I was in my opinion quite fit and had a healthy pregnancy. Except from an annoying heartburn, I didn’t suffer from any of the usual pregnancy ailments.

The doctors didn’t quite agree. I had twice as many appointments as other pregnant women and at the end of the pregnancy I wondered if I should perhaps just change my address to my doctor’s office. They were worried about all kinds of things due to the surgery, among other things they worried that the surgery scar would tear open. It didn’t. 

Hubby was terrified they’d accidentally cut off limbs during the surgery. I tried to tell him that at the time of the surgery the little microscopic pea that was to become our daughter didn’t have any arms or legs to be cut off, but to no avail. Even after we’d had seen the ultrasound pictures on the screen where our daughter quite clearly had all limbs intact, he was convinced she’d be born with half an arm or leg missing. She didn’t.

6 weeks before term I started bleeding during intercourse. In our blissful ignorance it never dawned on us that having sex while pregnant could be a potential problem late in the pregnancy. We were young with a healthy sex drive and had humped away as usual up until this point – having a lot of creative fun making room for a growing tummy. The fun stopped abruptly, that’s for sure. I experienced no pain, so I wasn’t too worried that something terrible had happened and I argued vigilantly for us to do nothing, but just wait and see. I didn't particularly feel like explaining myself to strangers about the whats and whys and hows...

Hubby disagreed just as vigilantly, of course, he was now convinced he was going to lose both his wife and unborn child. I have to admit that I was more terrified of having to explain what had happened and more to the point, how it had happened, than of anything being wrong with the baby and I downright refused to go to the ER unless he agreed to come with me and do all the talking. We argued back and forth and in the end he agreed to come with me and help me explain. 

Then came the problem with transportation. We didn’t have a car and we didn’t really have the extra money for a cab. After another round of arguing, we decided to call on our friend, Axel whose girlfriend had a pimped up hot pink bubble convertible. It took a lot of stuttering, shifting of legs, kicking at invisible dust and a lot of blushing, giggling and mentally dying to explain our need and then a lot of promising that, no, I wasn’t bleeding that much and wouldn’t mess out the car. And no, I wasn’t going to give birth in the car either, etc and so on. 

Finally we arrived at the hospital. I had completely made up my mind about not needing to see any doctor at all by now, but Axel and Runar unceremoniously picked me up and hauled me inside and told the receptionist that I was bleeding and needed immediate medical treatment as I was 6 weeks from term.  I was secretly planning on sneaking out of there, but hubby knows me too well, or my plans were written all over my face, because they placed me between them on the waiting bench and kept a firm hold of me until it was my turn. 

Some nurse came to get me and Hubby; the dastardly Judas, promptly proclaimed that he would just sit there on the bench and wait with Axel and before I knew it I stood there in the examination room alone, with 4 nurses and a doctor wanting to know what had made me start bleeding and how.

Oh, how I wanted to crawl into myself and just disappear. All my telltale signs made it pretty obvious, I think. Regardless they had me tell it in details and before I was done every single person there – somehow, even more medical personnel came in and insisted on taking part of ‘examining’ me while I was agonizingly stumbling through my explanation – was giggling and/or laughing uncontrollably and quite frankly showed little to no professionalism.

My embarrassment had by now mostly turned to indignation and when I stomped my foot and shouted: “It’s not funny!” the doctor shooed most of the extra people out while working hard at controlling her own mirth. 

I was examined, tests were taken and the doctor told me that the bleeding was due to a burst vessel and that nothing was wrong with the baby. She continued with telling me that while it was healthy and good to have sex during a pregnancy and that I should consider myself lucky that my partner and I had such a good relationship blah, blah, blah, she as a medical expert sadly had to absolutely forbid me to have sex for the next two weeks as having sex late in the pregnancy could start the birth prematurely. And that I wouldn’t want that, but that when I only had 3 weeks left to my term and I could fuck(I swear she used this word) all I liked. Then she laughed, hugged me and sent me out. 

I stomped out of the hospital as fast as I could get my overgrown stomach to move with hubby and Axel trailing after me while laughingly trying to make me repeat what I told the doctors and what they told me. I seem to recall some gruesome threats of horrible deaths that would happen to them if they didn't shut the f@$k up!

As if this wasn’t enough, a report of this …incident was sent to my regular doctor – who happened to be an older highly religious and righteous man -  and I had to not only explain myself one more time, I had to sit and listen to him lecturing me about proper and healthy behavior while pregnant. I had 4 weeks left of it. I’d say he was a bit late in trying to get me to change my sinful, evil ways… 

So to all you pregnant people out there, sex during pregnancy is safe and apparently good for you, but not during the last(second last?) part of the pregnancy, so unless you enjoy having to explain yourself to doctors and nurses while dying of mortal shame, just refrain from having intercourse during that time. 

Have a wonderful weekend

Grandma Crazy

I loved this lady. She has provided me of countless fascinating stories about her life from her childhood in an isolated community way up north where myths and old folklore were still very much alive.  For all her craziness and for all her errors and mistakes, she had a loving heart and worked harder than most people to provide and care for her family all her life. 

There are too many stories about Grandma Crazy to tell them all here, so I've chosen one old and one not so old to give you an inkling of who this bone fide crazy lady was. Most of the time, her craziness was just funny, but she did have a terrible temper and her ....unique view of reality could make things difficult to handle at times. 

This is an older story about her  and this really shows her madness quite well...

It was my daughter's 3rd birthday both grandmas, hubby's sister(then 20)
and hubby's youngest brother(then 8) were at the party.

Well let me for the record inform you that this other grandma - hubby's maternal grandma is this sweet old lady, very religious and very frightened of getting ill - all kind of illness(there's some stories of her as well) ...ooops ok anyway...during this party Grandma Crazy started telling us about her life as a wife on a farm up in the inland mountains (Knaben) when her kids were young.
It started out innocently enough, but ended up in a very colorful and downright perverted story. I'm not kidding you! She went on and on about how scared she was of going out to the barn where her cow was about ready to calf - cos in her mind she suspected their neighbour of doing it to the cow! she was afraid the calf would have a human head!

I'm telling you, you should have been there! I was behind the kitchen wall on my knees tears streaming down my face, biting on my arm not to laugh out loud while for the life of me, not daring to look over at my hubby who alternated with clasping his hands over his face doing grimaces and fighting the urge to laugh. During this whole story
grandma Sweet was clasping her hands together exclaiming; "oh my", " oh dear" oh..., oh, really" "oh, I'll say" in a shaking voice.

My sister-in-law was shouting and yelling at Grandma Crazy to shut up. My poor
brother-in-law sat numbed between the grandmas with eyes the size of dinner-plates, while my daughter at 3 was too young to understand and happily played with all her new toys.

***

OK, here's the story of how Grandma Crazy ended up disowning father-in-law and his entire family. 

Hubby's younger brother got married some years ago. They invited his Grandma Crazy- she reclined due to her hearing problems - which is true she uses a hearing device, but doesn't like them and turns them off - but she gave them NOK1500.- and everything was "just dandy"

hubby's younger cousin - the same age as his younger brother and a close buddy since childhood - got married this weekend, and before the wedding Grandma Crazy was bragging about what a wonderful weddingpresent she was giving him. My parents in law asked her how much she was giving them and she told them a coffee set worth NOK5500

They and hubby's uncle and wife asked her to please not treat her grandchildren differently or she would end up hurting them. But to no ends - they were talking to "deaf ears" instead she was deeply wounded and not only ended up giving the expensive present but also attended the whole wedding ceremony and party.

The result being that my parents in law got offended and told her what she had done was wrong and that she was in fact telling my brother in law  that she liked his cousin better. They told her they were angry with her and thought she owed them an apology. 
 You'd think they'd wrongly accused her of murder from all the ado that arised afterwards.

She has now declared war. Let me just tell you that this old lady is 83, she is from up north in norway, she has the foulest mouth  - she cusses worse than a sailor and she is somewhat lacking in empathy - she actually left her childhood girlfriend passed out on the floor when she was very sick with canser. Not only that, but she even got mad at her friend for having the nerve to do that to Grandma Crazy while SHEvisited - I'm not kidding you, she went on and on about it to me afterwards. I couldn't believe my own ears! Worse, she is still mad at her and what she refers to "such rude behaviour"  and the poor old girlfriend is now deseased!

Anyway, Grandma Crazy came visiting the other day! She wanted my compassion and my support for her being treated so badly by my mother-in-law. She cussed her to 7th hell and back calling her (mannskjit, hespetre, jævla hurpe, etc)  I don't know the English words but "f**ing bitch" is complimentory in comparrison. 

Hubby had to go out on the porch, he can't handle her foul mouth eruptions and wild lies and was afraid he'd grab her and physically throw her out the door. I maintained my calm but as I agree with my inlaws that what she did was wrong, I let Grandma Crazy know as much. Lets say she wasn't exactly happy with me when she left.  

By this time she has turned this whole thing into my parents in law being after her cos they want her money. Good one isn't it?!?  

I tried to tell explain why her actions could seem offensive, but she wouldn't listen to that; "NO! Those no good for nothing *****" she shouted, they didn't want her to be happy, and was only afraid they wouldn't get her money...and so on . She was working herself up to the point of snapping completely. I was a bit scared she would start hitting me with her purse, instead of the furniture. The lady was actually jumping up and down screaming obscenities on top of her voice. I had to stand up and shout "Enough! Grandma, I don't allow such language in my house, please calm down."  She did calm down for 2 min. Her language became so ugly, I had to ask her to leave in the end. I didn't know what else to do, to be honest, so I told her that it would be best if she left and talked to my parents in law about it.

Upon leaving she also wanted me to tell her; "what that old cow in buhølen" (local placename) gave XXX for the wedding. the old cow" being hubby's maternal grandmother. A very sweet and mild spoken lady we call; Grandma Sweet. Grandma Crazy's last words while stomping down the steps was that we could all take a hike and that she no longer considered us her family.

Bad-ass or not, here goes

Lorin, this is for you

I've done some serious thinking and I admit, perhaps my childhood was a tad bit more eventful than what most kids live through. Still, I firmly believe I had a relative safe and happy childhood. The time I grew up in - the 70s and 80s - and the place I grew up in - a lazy small town - allowed us kids a lot of freedom to explore and learn life's lessons, both good ones and those not so good, in a way that not many kids are allowed to do today.

I'm not sure I'm all that bad-ass tough some of you guys seem to think I am. Sure I've been in some fights and lived through a few stunts, but nothing serious nor out of the ordinary, really. I am independent, impulsive and have a lot more imagination than is good for me. Growing up these things would sometimes get me into trouble, but it also taught me how to avoid serious trouble - or at least most of the time. Here's a story from when I was around 10 or 11. My mother was institutionalized much of the period from my little sister was about a year old up to she was 7 and naturally it fell to me to look after her.

Boredom and imagination - not always a good mix

It was early summer, school was off for the summer, but nobody had gone away on vacation yet and a bunch of us kids hung around the school yard wondering what to do. I was watching how the cleaning ladies were opening windows to air out the girls' shower and changing rooms for the gym and an idea struck me. Wouldn't it have been fun if we could sneak into the gym and have fun with all the apparatuses and whatnot? Problem was, how to get in unnoticed? I mentioned it to some of the others and the discussion was on. Now, the group of childhood friends was an odd sorts of mix with kids from the age of 3 (my sister) up to 11 and both girls and boys. One boy my age who was from a big city and was spending the vacation at his cousin's to keep him out of trouble, knew a great 'big city trick' to make open windows appear to be closed. These were old fashion windows that could be opened all the way - no locked position or safety measures. So we waited and watched, and as soon as the cleaning ladies left the changing room we sneaked up to one of the windows, placed a small coin on the frame and closed the window. The window appeared to be closed if one didn't look too closely - and discovered that the hasps weren't locked.

We got lucky. when we got back in the early afternoon, sure enough, the window opened. By now we had dispersed ourselves of the youngest children and we were about 10 kids from age 8 - 11 plus my little sister at 3. My dad was busy working at the farm and she was too young to look after herself. I am not sure how my logic worked. I didn't want her to be left alone and let harm come to her, but turning her into a juvenile delinquent obviously didn't bother me at all. By then she had been along to numerous break ins to local factories and empty houses. We never stole anything though, after all we were not thieves, we told ourselves. We simply wanted the thrill of getting into places we weren't supposed to. Admittedly, we'd break a few windows, but most often we managed to avoid doing serious damage to property and equipment. There was a reason for this, other than not wanting to become sinful thieves - which is what we scared the younger kids with "You'll be a thief and the lord Jesus will know and you'll grow black spots on your tongues and your parents will find out what you did and you'll get both a beating and go to hell" Yeah...I know, not very nice, but very, very effective. There was a different reason much more important. As long as we didn't steal or break anything, if caught, we'd be able to talk ourselves out of it without our parents getting any knowledge of it.
I don't think any of us kids ever ratted on anybody. My sister at 3 was way too young for this to be effective, though. I used a different method of threatening her to silence. "If you tell dad, I'll beat you black and blue and you'll never, ever be allowed to come with me on anything fun ever again!"  It worked. I don't think she ever told my parents any of the uncountable pranks and break-ins she was in on. She told me when she was a proper grownup that for her it was all like living in an adventure movie and the fear of being let out on the fun was enough to keep her lips sealed.

So, here we were, 10 kids roaming around like madmen in the gym. climbing ropes, jumping on apparatuses, balancing, throwing balls of all sizes and doing everything we never got to do enough of while in PE with teachers to kill the joy of it all. The gym was in the basement of the Admin building, the door to the hall was open and by chance of pure luck - I believe I had more than a fair share of luck as a kid - I heard a familiar coughing from the entrance hall just a few stairs up from where we were. My blood froze in my veins, I knew that cough and I knew the sound of those foot steps; they belonged to my dad.

I should perhaps mention that my dad was the janitor of this elementary school, my uncle was the headmaster and at least one of the teachers were an aunt.

My thoughts raced through my head. If I was caught breaking into the school I was a dead person. and Oh my fraking gawd! If I was caught breaking an entrance with my little innocent sister in toe, I was not only dead, I was dead twice over. I think the look of pure panic on my face must have been warning enough for the rest of the gang. Silence settled over the gym like a graveyard. Everybody stood frozen in place, my sister didn't quite see the problem, for her it was only the dadman, nothing to worry about, but she dutifully kept her mouth shot at my gesturing finger across my lips and a look that could spear straight through her if she even thought of uttering a single sound.

The only thing on my my mind was to get my little sister out of there. Being a Janitor's daughter sucks toe-farts most of the time, not only do you have a dad who knows everything that goes on at school, interrogating you constantly during dinners about every prank happening and you can never get away with ANYTHING what so ever without him hearing about it. As if this isn't bad enough... you also have to step in for cleaning personnel, help do repairs and crawl around in nasty places I came to hate the phrase: "because you're small and nimble enough to fit, Eli, that's why". When I got older, I had to step in for my dad whenever there were serious break ins. And let me tell you, entering that huge building after someone had discovered broken doors, not knowing whether or not some nuthead drugfiends were still inside with weapons ready, was absolutely terrifying. Why a 14 - 17 years old kid would be ordered by her headmaster uncle to go check out what damage had been done and if something had been stolen - which was reason for calling in the cops, is beyond me, but, hey, that is how it was back then...
This day, however, I finally drew an advantage of being a janitor's daughter - I knew all the ways in and out of the school buildings and I suddenly recalled there being a back door out of the gym that wasn't well known and that didn't have the kind of doors that only opens with a key. This particular door had the kind of lock you could open from the inside without the use of a key. I gestured to the rest of the gang, grabbed my sister in a death grip and started running. I am not the kind of person who can run for very long, not even as a kid, but I have always been a sprinter and that day I ran faster than I have ever ran before or after. My sister's feet were far too small to be able to follow me. Did that slow me down? Hells no! The poor child was flying horizontally behind me like a kite. I reached the back door and I remember I thought the rest of the gang sounded like bloody hippos and snarled at them to keep quiet, while struggling to get the lock - which was old and tended to get stuck - open. Finally it clicked open and out we went. I didn't stop running though, I continued running with my sister flying behind me up into the woods and didn't stop until I reached the top of the nearest mountain. None of us uttered a word, we were too scared and I doubt any of us had any breath left for talking for several minutes. Then we spent several more minutes in pure agony wondering whether or not we had been noticed and I nearly decided upon emigrating to a different country when we remembered the coats and shoes that we'd left behind.

Everybody got out. I still don't quite understand how we got away with it. I haven't ever dared tell my dad about it and I am not sure if he knew that there were kids inside the school and if that was the reason for his extremely loud coughing and he just pretended not to hear us - my dad had a soft spot for pranksters, which saved my sorry ass more than once - or if he truly didn't hear us. When we dared to go back, to clean up and collect our things, the back door was wide open.

We broke into the school again after this - the coin trick was quite the handy trick for sneaking into buildings, but I never joined the gang playing in the gym again. I figured I had used up all my luck regarding that place.

We did  get caught at times, but never while breaking into the school. I managed to talk us out of it the times we were caught while I was in on it. I think my vivid imagination helped somewhat. I had these crazy explanation for how we ended up wherever it was we were when getting caught. Highly improbable, of course, but wild enough to get the owner laughing. And one thing we kids knew - if an adult starts laughing, the kids have won. We'd get away with a talking to, a slap to the back of our heads and having to promise never to do it again.

The breaking ins lasted until the before mentioned city-slicker cousin started a forklift inside a factory and didn't manage to turn it off. It was just him his youngest cousin - neither boy could be said to be among the brightest of people. Apparently they ended up tying the steering wheel so that it ran in a circle all night until the workers arrived in the morning and could turn it off. Police got involved, the guilty were found out and our career as non-stealing thieves came to an abrupt end. Although they did not rat on the rest of us, we figured it was not worth the chance as long as all the factory owners in the neighborhood was now aware of local kids breaking into places all over town...



Only one time did I not manage to talk myself out of trouble. That was in comparison more than enough to last me a life time. I got caught drinking in public at 15... but that is a story for another time.