Manipulating an old lady to walk up and down the stairs

There is no doubt that growing up, I was a mischievous kid. To put it lightly.

In truth, I was a number of things, at times coming close to malicious.

I was raised up a P.K. – a preacher’s kid. NOT a pastor’s kid, but a self-ordained preacher. Along with all the wonderful bullshit that entailed. But, the point is that we referred to other members of the church as “sister” or “brother”.

One such example was “Sister Anna”. Now, I was very young. My brothers and sisters even younger. Sister Anna was very old. Not just old, but elderly. And her mind was going. But, she was still in good enough shape for my parents to ask her to keep an eye on us for a day or so while they were gone.

So. This old lady was keeping an eye out on all six of us. Yup, six kids. I was the oldest. And the instigator. So since that was my job, I instigated.

We all decided to sleep upstairs in my parent’s room. There might have been one or two of us kids sleeping downstairs, but that was a LONG time ago, and I don’t recall. What I do recall is, that we weren’t settling down like we were instructed.

Now, the stairs creaked. Especially at night when everything was quiet.

So we would hear the old voice from downstairs tell us to settle down and go to bed. We kinda ignored it. Then, we started hearing the creaking up the stairs. Laboriously, each step was taken. Creak. Another step. Creak…

I let old Sis Anna get about a third of a way up the stairs, then I called out. “Sis Anna, we will behave”. She spoke back (with relief in her voice), “OK. Good. Go to sleep” (or whatever). Then we would listen as she creaked back down the stairs.

Step.

Creak.

Then after she had left the stairs, and a bit of time had passed, we started playing again. Making noise. Then, we would be alerted.

Step.

Creak.

I would quiet us all down and wait again until she was about a third of the way up. I would yell, “Sis Anna, we’ll behave”. She would acknowledge, and head back down the stairs.

We’d wait, and once it seemed safe enough, we would start playing again.

But you know me. I have to push it.

So it became a game. I led us into play, simply to get the attention. Then, Sis Anna would start up the stairs, and again I would yell out that we would behave.

Then, I had the bright idea. As she creaked down the steps, and I could tell she was just right at the bottom, I called out, “Sis Anna, we change our mind. We are not going to quiet down”. And then, the creaking started back up the steps. Once she would get about a third of the way, I called out that “We will behave”. And the creaking would go back down.

After some time had passed again, this NEW process was repeated.

We did this as well several times. Us kids were laughing, and having a grand Ole time.

Poor old lady….

However, we didn’t get in trouble for this. Did she report us? Did she even remember the event when our parents came back? I don’t know about my brothers and sisters, but I was expecting to get a good whopping for this.

But sometimes, it was worth it! 🙂