"OH BOO" circa 1977

I was taking some sort of class that year and my mother acquiesced to watching nancdaughter the eldest (nte) after school for but a half hour or so a couple of days a week.

My mother did seasonal work and would usually be getting home about the time nte would be getting off the bus. She would bring her inside her home, sit her down, give her a snack, turn cartoons on and go to bed and I would arrive a short time later to pick her up.

Worked out quite well until one day my mom said to me, "Could you PUHLEEZE ask nte to STOP throwing her banana peels under my dining room table?" I asked, "Huh?" Mom, "Yes, every single time I get up later in the day and there under the table is a banana peel - now you know I don't care if she eats all the bananas - just ask her to put the peels in the garbage." "Okay, mom."

"Nte, grammy wants you to put the banana peels in the garbage after you eat one instead of on the floor under the table, okay?" Nte with puzzled look on her face, "I don't eat grammy's bananas!" "Grammy says you're eating her bananas and throwing the peels on the floor." "NO! I'M NOT!"

Okay so I believed her - five year olds have usually not honed the art of lying so well at that age and I went to my mom and said, "Mom, nte says she DID NOT throw banana peels on the floor under your table." Mom responded huffily, "Well then, I'll just have to prove it to you by staying up and sneaking down the hallway and just watch her and then you'll HAVE to believe ME!" Whatever, mom...

A few days later and one of the FEW times my mother has EVER apologized to me, she ashamedly told me, "I'm sorry, but it wasn't nte eating and throwing the banana peels under the table. I snuck down the hallway and just watched and she sat in front of the t.v. watching a cartoon the whole time. Then Waffles (her favorite child - a dog, btw) got up on the table, tore a banana off the bunch, jumped down under the table, bit at the peel until it came off, ate the banana and left the dayamed peel right there!"

...oh boo...