It's funny how little kids tend to think they're so smart and yet grownup always seem to know what we were doing. Apparently, at one point in our house there actually was a "no tv in the afternoons during the school year" rule. I'm a little fuzzy on the actual rule and it's enforcement. I do recall however, one instance where that rule was actually enforced.
My brother and I were left home alone while my mom and grandma most likely went grocery shopping. I can't be sure as my memories are a little patchy, I just know they weren't home. So my brother and I took the opportunity to watch tv to our hearts content. I can't even remember what was so good that we just had to watch. Probably cartoons or some such non-sense of my brother's choice. Back then we didn't have chinese supermarkets on every street corner so grocery shopping most likely entailed a trip to MPK or China Town. We rarely shopped at the local Vons because those places were too expensive. So shopping trips took upwards to a few hours.
Being the nervous kid that I was around mid afternoon I would already be on the lookout for my mom's red car to pull around the corner of our little cul-de-sac always thinking that I heard a rumble. Naturally, I would be the first to spot my mom and I'd let my brother know that "they're home!" He'd snap off the TV and we'd run to our respective rooms and pull out our books as if we'd been studying/reading all afternoon. Of course when they all got home we'd rush over to the garage and welcome them home as if nothing out of the ordinary happend. Once the groceries were brought in and everything put away my grandmother would always just know that we'd been watching TV! It wasn't until I grew up did I realize TVs got hot when on so all grandma did was feel the back of the TV to know whether or not it had been in use. Apparently my brother and I weren't as resourceful and bright as my mom an her siblings. They used to cool the TV off with a fan before their parents got home - much smarter! But somehow my grandma still knew what they were up to - creepy!
Eventually, we gave up watching TV and came up with more creative means to occupy our time. One such afternoon my brother had a brilliant idea that we should make our own homemade blow torch! My mom, a poor unfortunate victim of 80s fashion, had tons of hair holding products one of which being the cheap Aquanet hairspray that came in aerosol canisters. Back then every household with a women must have owned at least one can of that stuff. This was a time before aerosol was deemed "bad" for the environment.
Anyhow, one can of Aquanet, one book of matches, and a bucket of water for safety later a blow torch was born. It seems ridiculous now that we even thought of getting a bucket of water handy to be safe - but we did and of course we responsibly dropped all the used lit matches into the bucket of water so that there was no way the match would spontaneously re-ignite itself. Because of course that was the most dangerous part of our little activity! We even kept all the windows and doors tightly shut so that our neighbors would not smell what we were up to because of course if they neighbors found out they would tell our mom because that was the only way she would find out about our little scheme. Needless to say when my mom and grandma got home they were furious. I suppose in retrospect it's really amazing we managed NOT to burn the house down around us. Good thing the insurance company never found out huh?
Honestly between the two of us - it was a pretty cool sight!
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