A little story about my first big humiliation. The first of many.
I grew up in a very, very, very small town. My father was a volunteer fireman there for most of my life. When my older sister and I were little we used to love to go to the fire station to see him and "help" with stuff. Really, we would just go to see what other kids were up there with their parents so we could all group together and run all over town like savages. I was about 5 or 6 at this time, so I rarely got to leave the station with the older kids because my Dad feared they would either accidentally leave me somewhere or my sister would kill the first person that looked at me funny. (She was a tad overprotective unless she was the one beating my ass.)
After fires, Dad would take the hoses off the trucks and lie them all flat to drain. He used to tell me to walk very slowly, toe to heel, all the way down them to help get the water out. I loved doing this. I felt like I was helping not only my town, but pretty much all of America. Plus, when I helped, my Dad would buy me Hostess cherry pies which at the time were basically catnip to me. I didn't like to mop the water off the floor once it gushed out of the hoses, so I would cheat a little and put the nozzle over one of the many drains in the floor to save myself time. Inventive? Yes. Lazy? Also yes.
One summer afternoon, my Dad had come back to the station from a brush fire so my Sister, her friend Val and I went up to there to help take care of biz. I'm doing my job with the hoses and my Dad is re-stocking the trucks and cleaning up and such. My Sister and Val are bored so they ask my Dad if they can go across main street to the gas station to buy snacks. I can't remember what miracle took place to make this happen, but I get to go with them. It was a bright sunny afternoon and this was before my town reduced to being just a bar and a Dollar General so there were a lot of people out and about.
After we get our delicious and I'm sure healthy gas station snacks, Sister and Val each take one of my hands. They walk me over to the sidewalk so we can cross Main Street back to the station. There are no such things as stop lights or crosswalks in my town, you just make due wherever it's most convenient. They have already informed me that we are walking across when they count to three and now they are talking to each other waiting for a good opening in traffic. Riding high on my wave of joy at being allowed to go with the girls across big bad Main Street for the first time, I decide I'm going to show them how cool I can be by playing a trick. They see an opening in the cars coming, so starts the "Ok, kid.... one (a big smile spreads across my face)....two (my eyes narrow in anticipation)...." and I yell "THREE!", rip my hands free of theirs, and sprint out into the street.
Several things happen at once. Cars from both ways screech to a stop. The noise makes me freeze in place. I look to my left, and an older man I don't recognized isn't worried about me, but shaking his old ass fist at me screaming out his window. My Sister and Val run to me and sweep me up in both of their arms as my Sister yells for the old man to "shut your mouth! she's just a kid!". They set me down safely on the other side and it occurs to me I have done something very wrong. I begin to worry and beg them not to tell Dad. My Sister is examining me for any harm while glancing back at the station making sure he has not emerged. She is visibly shaken and warns me that if "you ever do that again, I'll throw all your Little Ponies in the wood chipper". I begin to cry. She wipes my tears and we all agree it's just best to act totally normal and not tell Dad how horribly my first access to Main Street without parental supervision went. She takes my hand (MUCH more firmly this time) and we walk back into the station through the bay door.
My Dad is briskly walking up from the back with a concerned look on his face. As he meets us in the middle of the station, he asks what the honking and tire noises were for out on the street. Within a second from those words dropping from his mustachioed mouth, my Sister folds like a house of cards on a breezy day. "SHE RAN OUT INTO THE STREET, DAD!" The only noise I could hear was my father slowly inhaling. He is 6'4" and I am most likely about 3'2" at this time. My face is right about level with his Bruce Jenner short shorts. I am frozen in place clutching my Hostess for life. I see his hands ball into fists and raise ever so slowly to meet his hips as I can feel his eyebrows meeting at the same time he is lowering his face to stare me down. I decide I have to look sooner or later so I muster the courage to look up. I should have been summoning the ability to control my bladder because as soon as I took in the worried/super pissed look in the grown up eyes that match my own..... I pissed myself. Hardcore. Even his mustache looked mad.
"NOW SHE WET HER PANTS, DAD!" flies out of my Sister's mouth. My Dad unlocks his fiery gaze long enough to shift it to the I'm sure steadily growing puddle beneath my Kangaroos. His face turns instantly to an apology. I burst into sobs. Sister bursts into laughter. Val is still a statue of fear. My Dad peels off his awesome Wild Turkey t-shirt, wraps it around the bottom half of my kick ass shorts jumpsuit and scoops me up into a sweaty hug. "Your Mom is going to murder me". I cry harder as I try to get an apology out. He takes me to the ladies room and cleans me up as he explains that he wasn't mad, he was just scared. He grabs another t shirt from his locker and puts me in that. It is a dress on me so I don't need anything else. I can NOT stop sobbing. I have let my father down for the first time and I'm pretty sure life as I know it is over. Let's not even discuss the mortification of pissing in front of my Sister and Val (who both still remind me of this almost 30 years later). He takes me out back and lies me down in his truck to take a nap in the sun while he washes out my jumpsuit. I didn't know it at the time, but he threatens my Sister that if she tells Mom or anyone about this, he's going to take away her Rick Springfield albums.
When he finally comes back out to get me, he looks so sorry for making me cry. He gets me re-dressed and explains that I can't run away from or disobey my sister even when she's being a dickhead. He promises to take me on more walks across the street so I understand traffic. He says that old man that shook his fist at me is an asshole anyway, so don't worry about that. He gives me a few more hugs and says not to be embarrassed because he's not going to tell anyone and if Sister does, "she's getting the belt". He stands me up, smooths my hair and says "Hey.... at least you peed directly over a drain!" with a big, bright-eyed smile on his face.
Oh, Dad. I love you.
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