Parent Blackmail

I was four years old, and it was my grandmother's funeral. I was getting bored and restless and then thirsty. My mom sent me off with my brother and a cousin to the funeral home to search for a drinking fountain. The building wasn't close to the grave site, so by the time we walked there, found a drinking fountain and I quenched my thirst, it was time to leave. So that's what everyone did. . .without us. I remember seeing the familiar cars pass by the building we were in. I think it took awhile for us to realize that we had been completely left behind, that no one was waiting by the grave site and no one was trying to tease us.

Meanwhile, someone asks where we are, and someone else says they saw us last with uncle Chuck, who says he thought we had gone with Uncle Don, who thought we were with Aunt Cheryl, and so on. Finally my mom remembers that she sent us off in search of water and realizes that we must have been left there.

It was about this time that the mean ladies at the funeral home let us use the telephone, (For some reason they didn't want us to use the phone, but they finally let us use it when they realized we weren't going anywhere until we made a phone call) and my brother called home to have someone pick us up.

So whenever my parents get tough, I remind them that they once left me at a cemetery.