Did Daddy tell you?

I've been searching for some lamps for the soon to be newly decorated master suite in my home.

As I walk through store after store (from Dillards to the Hospice Thrift Store) I find that no pair of lamps want to jump off the shelf and into my arms.  You might say I'm being just a tad particular about this.

However, as often is the case, my shopping trips also take me down memory lane.

Like the time my mother took me into an antique store and remembers that the proprietor was so nervous that I was going to pick something up and alas - break it.

I've been in many antique stores and I have never broken anything.


Okay I've never broken anything in an antique store...

I was six and my sister Cindy was two when we lived in a small apartment behind my grandparents home.  If my memory serves me correctly, the house my parents had owned in Bridgewater had sold faster than they ever dreamed and we lived in the apartment while they were determining our next move.

At any rate, mother was gone to church one Sunday night and daddy kept us at home.  No doubt he made us a chocolate milkshake and the three of us had a grand time.  At some point, Cindy and I decided it would be great fun to play a little game of chase - up and over a chair in the living room.

Cindy found this cartoon and we thought it fit

A lamp on a table was next to the chair and on one of our up and overs -

You guessed it ... one of us (and I really think it was Cindy) hit the table and the lamp came crashing to the floor.  I am not sure but I think that lamp might have come from that antique store my mother had taken me to.

Daddy cleaned up the mess and put Cindy and me to bed.


I was still snubbing when my mother took me to the bathroom at some point in the night.


"Did daddy tell you what Cindy did?"


"Daddy told me what you and Cindy did," my mother said.


But see I always thought she did it - she's the one the hit the table.


That's kind of the way life is, don't you think?  It's always easier to blame someone else - rather than accept responsibility for our own actions - or at least a part of the responsibility.


Cindy and I have always remembered that night and the many Sunday nights that daddy stayed home with us while mother went to church.  We were not punished for our carelessness - but to this day I am always a little nervous when I walk through the section of a store that sells lamps. . .


See - I'm still blaming it on something (not just someone) else/