An amusing Halloween season story...
The only reason I'm going to pass on this story is that my sister reminded me about it this last weekend. I hadn't thought about it in a long time and I got to laughing about it while I was relating the story to my wife. My wife stared at me in complete horror as I told her this story...lol
My dad and I don't have much of a relationship, never have, mainly due to his penchant for being a life long a-hole. One of his multiple crappy personality traits is his love of a, usually misplaced and most of the time completely offensive, practical joke. Ok, well, circa de 1987, my freshman year of high school our school held its annual Halloween carnival. I know they're called Fall Festivals now but back then we still referred to them as Halloween carnivals. Anywho, My mom dropped me off at the high school then accompanied my sister, six years younger than me, to her third grade carnival. My old man didn't attend school events, nor would I have wanted him to, so he stayed home. The carnival kicked off around 6pm and everything finished up around 9:30-ish. My mom picked me back up and we headed home. We pulled into our driveway, got out, all was normal, I was the first one up to the door, and immediately noticed the front door was standing open.
This was completely out of character for my house, my old man being a "all doors and windows will be locked and secured at all times" type person ever since I can remember. I glanced inside and saw the two recliners in the living room were turned over on their side and the lamp was laying in the floor, obvious signs of a struggle. I turned around, told my mom what I saw, told her to take my sister back to the car and wait for me....lol, My mom told me afterwards, it didn't even cross her mind to question me my tone was so serious, but calm. I proceeded inside the house and instead of investigating, made my way immediately to my mom and dad's bedroom, opened my dad's gun closet, picked out his .357 Colt Trooper, opened the cylinder, made sure it was fully loaded, as was normal, and began slowly going room to room. I remember hearing my mom yell my name over and over but I didn't answer her. I checked the back two bedrooms, moved forward and then heard a sound out in our laundry room which was behind a closed door at the end and to the left of the hallway. I very quietly moved to the end of the hallway, flanking the door and watched, terrified, as the door (it's a sliding door) slowly slid open. As the door slid back, I brought the Colt to full ready position and cocked the hammer. My dad had pulled a winter ski mask over his head, and put on an old army field jacket for effect. Our eyes met and his eyes grew very large as he stared down the barrel of the Colt..lol. For a moment I didn't know what I was going to do, as it hadn't registered, yet, that this was my old man. My dad's voice, quieter than I had ever heard him talk up to that point, or since, croaked out "Shannon, it's me, please don't shoot." Another couple of seconds went by, I brought the Colt down to low ready and uncocked it.
I looked at him for a few more seconds then just handed him the pistol and walked outside to sit on the porch where I just about heaved all my Halloween carnival candy into our front yard. My mom came running up the steps, my old man came outside and tried, badly, to explain that it was just a Halloween prank, that he was just going to jump out and scare us when we came in. This prank almost caused my mom to divorce him...lol He told me later that he never heard me head down the hallway and never heard me creep back up to the door. He also said he was ABSOLUTELY convinced in those couple of seconds before recognition set in that I was going to kill him. He told me later and still swears that the pistol never wavered one centimeter as he stared at it....lol
Anyway, I thought since it's approaching the Halloween season I'd pass on that little ditty...my old man's a moron in case I didn't mention that earlier..lol Safe night everyone.