the banish club

so the other day i wrote about my wonderful childhood and all the good memories i have from it. today i thought i would share one of my favorite memories. my brothers and sister and i talk about this memory often around the sunday dinner table and we are always laughing so hard we are crying.

first, my mom home schooled all seven of us. she stopped with my younger siblings a few years ago so she could go back to work. because we were home schooled and were aloud very very limited tv, there was a ton of time during the day that we had to fill with making up games for entertainment.

on this particular day we decided we were going to have a circus on the family room couch. my mom who all throughout my childhood was either pregnant or nursing, was napping with the youngest at the time. so here we are walking along the back of the couch, jumping on the cushions and doing flips over the arms and wouldn't you know the darn thing broke! and i mean broke. the frame snapped and one or two of the legs collapsed.

it made the loudest sound imaginable we all looked at each other and held our breaths hoping my mom hadn't heard. before we could blink, she was standing in the family room and she was not very happy. i can't remember her exact words but something like she didn't want to hear or see us until after nap time.

subsequently, my oldest brother jake, convinced us that she meant she never wanted to see us again and we would have to live in the basement from now on.

jake, was always the leader so being good sheep we followed him down to the basement.

he then told us to make clay cups and plates because we weren't ever going to be aloud to use the stuff in the kitchen again. finally, he got us all paper grocery bags and had us put them on our heads and practice eating because if we were ever on the off chance invited to join in any family meals we would need bags on our head, so my mom wouldn't have to look at us. so we did that too. we spent the rest of the day in the basement in what was dubbed, "the banish club." jake named it, naturally.

eventually, my mom made us come up for dinner of course she had forgotten about being mad and told us to take off the paper bags. to tell you the truth i think she was happy we broke that couch. it was ugly and smelled like cigarette smoke from the previous owner.

the end