Getting "busted" by your parents....

A recent text from my step-mother cracked me up.  She reminded me of an incident which was not funny at the time but is hilarious today.  I swear, this is the type of thing that could only happen to me.

I'm pretty sure that most of us have been in trouble for doing something that our parents told us not to do.  This story is like that, but worse.  This is a story about getting "the most busted" you could ever, ever get.... and I did it.

The year was 1985.  It was my senior year in high school.  I was up to all kinds of shenanigans in those days.  From the outside looking in, it must have looked like I really enjoyed school because I was doing everything I could to ensure that I would have to return for another year.  My folks were keen to it and this naturally caused a little friction within the Dudley family.

I got suspended that year for fighting, insubordination and a couple of other things.  I got run out of a few classes because I couldn't keep my mouth shut.  It was awful and I know I caused a lot of gray hairs that year.

It got to the point where the strategy of trying to keep me engaged long enough to graduate changed.  The repetitious ass chewing "Come to Jesus" meetings morphed into a more subtle form of encouragement.  Instead of pointing at all of the things I was jacking up, my family was pointing at the things that I was doing right.  Some of the family bought into it.  Both my dad and I did not and of course we were standing in opposition regarding the subject matter.

One particular evening, dad gave me a call to check in.  He noted "Mt. Charleston is getting a record amount of snow tonight.  Will you do me a favor?  Please don't ditch school and drive your hot rod up to Lee canyon to screw around in the snow?"

  It sounded like a reasonable request and the thought hadn't crossed my mind, until he mentioned it.  I said, "Oh, no sweat dad.  I have a test tomorrow that I cannot miss". The conversation ended with what appeared to be a mutual agreement.

The next morning, I had forgotten about the agreement and decided that I could indeed afford to take a day off to play in the snow.  I gathered up a few fine friends, some rubber tire inner tubes and headed to the hills in my 1974 Plymouth Satellite.  (Not a great vehicle to be running up a mountain road covered in show and ice.)

As we left town and headed north, it was obvious that it had indeed snowed.  In fact, it was snowing harder than I had ever seen it snow at the time, but we were committed to a good time.  None of us had ever ditched school to play in the snow!  This was huge!

We make the turn to head up the canyon.  We are slipping and sliding all over the road, yet still making steady progress.... until the Highway Patrol was turning everyone around.  So yeah, I had to figure out how I was going to deal with the Highway Patrol with a bunch of my idiot miscreants in the car with me.  I didn't know it at the time, but that was the least of my concerns.

The Trooper pointed to a turn around spot a couple of hundred yards up the road.  He said, "What in the hell are you doing up here in that piece of shit?"  Naturally I said, "Hey, this is a nice sled.  We will make it if you let us go."  He in turn replied, "Turn that hunk of shit around and head back to school."  Well... those were direct orders from the law.The road was indeed blocked by numerous other law enforcement agencies and about every god damned news team in town, complete with their state of the art cameras.  As directed, we turned around, waved at the cameras and headed back into town.

I can't remember what happened with the rest of the day.  I'm relatively sure that we didn't make it back to campus.  I do remember mom coming home from work and asking me how my day was.  It was pretty good, so at that point I hadn't lied.  A couple of hours later, dad calls.  Mom answers the phone and they have a cordial discussion and mom says, "Your dad wants to talk to you."

"Hey son, how did that test go today?' he asked.  "I think it went pretty good, dad."  Dad said, "Well, that's great news.  Hey, do you guys have the TV on?"  I said that we did and he asked me to change the channel to channel 8 and give him a call back at the first commercial break.

I hung up the phone and walked over to the TV.  I told mom, "Dad wants me to turn the channel to channel 8 for a few minutes, is that okay?"  She said sure and asked "What for?"  I told her that I had no clue.  As soon as I get to channel 8, the nightly news was reporting from Lee Canyon and its record snow fall and the video showed them turning everyone around.  And guess whose big ass car, head and face made the nightly news????  This guy!

Do you know that feeling when you suddenly realize that you are going to have explosive diarrhea?  I had that.... and I mean in a bad way.  Now, I had been busted before and I took my whoopins, but I had never, ever been busted by the nightly news in front of the whole town while my parents watched me on the frigging news!  I knew that the ensuing conversation that evening were going to be colorful.

Mom had first crack at me.  She ripped me up one side and down the other and then kindly reminded me that I had to call my dad back and report in to him.  I sat down and dialed his number.  That explosive diarrhea feeling set in again and it felt like I had a full load on board.  Dad answered the phone laughing.  Not what I expected, but I thought "Is this the laughter of a mad man, moments before he kills his only son?".  "Did you catch that?" he asked.  Before I could clear the shit out of my throat he said, "Fucking idiot", laughed and hung up.

I didn't talk to my dad for a few days and this may have been the most fantastic parental move my dad ever came up with.  For those few days, I made sure that my ass was in school, turning in all of my homework, studying, getting the best grades I could because I just knew my dad was going to hop out of one of the janitorial closets in school and kill me in front of everyone.

When we did eventually talk, I asked my dad if he was still mad.  He again laughed and said, "No, shit no.  I used to do stupid shit like that and it would be completely ignorant of me to think that you wouldn't try something similar.  Besides, I wanted you to sit there with your mom and watch the news.  Kind of like a bonding experience, you know."  I was dumbfounded.  he closed the conversation by saying, "I'm sure your mom ripped you a new asshole far better than I could have in this situation. You lived through it.  I need to give you some advice though and I need you to really listen to what I have to say.'"  I remained quiet and he said, "I don't play all of the silly games you play.  I invented them, and I got busted for all of that and then some.  Make me one promise.  The next time I tell you to not do something and you think its a great idea to not listen, please make sure you don't get busted by the nightly news doing what I asked you to not do."

I did dad one better.  To this date, some 34-35 years later, I haven't made the nightly news for doing anything!  I think dear old dad would be proud of me.  I'm also glad that my step-mother is still around to have a laugh with me about this.