Thanks to an Olsen Twins film I learned the art of running away from home at the tender age of 6. Mary-Kate and Ashley made it look fun as they ran off to grandma's house for Christmas. They hitched a ride with a grumpy criminal couple and wha-la they were at grandma's house with a little time to spare.
One morning, at what I am assuming was an ungodly early hour, my little sister and I made our way to our garage. Why the garage? Well my parents, in an obvious stroke of genius, laid old carpet down in our garage and made it into our play room. Therefore, when we work up we jaunted off to the garage and began to play. You know the usual kids games, like cutting Barbie's hair until she looks like she has rabies, coloring outside the lines with ferocious intent, etc. Then after the initial elation of playtime had worn away my little sister, in her deep seeded belief that my sole purpose in life is to entertain her, asks me "Sissy what are we gonna play now?" I pondered this question for a short while and I said "....ummm....we could run away." to which she replied "ok". It was all so ridiculously nonchalant in a way that only a 6 and 3 year old can have a conversation. Kind of like... "Hey do you want to eat a sandwhich" "sure I love sandwhiches!"
The tone of this chat really should have notified me that my sister was not fully aware that running away meant leaving home but I was a first grader what did I know! So instead I said "Hey we should pack so stuff to take with us when we run away." So my sister, being the infinity wise young adventurer that she was grabbed the plastic grocery basket that we used to pretend we were shopping. I then proceeded back to the kitchen to rummage through the pantry. In the pantry I spotted an un-opened box of animal crackers and a few Snyder's Pretzels. These items seemed satisfactory and were added to our little basket. We then tiptoed past our sleeping parents bedroom and headed to our own room. We each grabbed some fresh undies and added them to our little runaway survival kit (because obviously clean underwear is every runaways must have fashion accessory!). We put on some socks and shoes and we were ready to rock and roll.
However, I must add that back in the day we slept in big t-shirts with no pants. On this particular day it had not dawned on us to change our clothes which means we were ready to head out with only big shirts, tennis shoes, and a plastic basket filled with animal crackers and underwear. Obvioulsy, we felt completely prepared to runaway from home, we had seen the movie so we were basically experts.
We tiptoed to the back door of the house and slipped out into the cool morning air. The journey around to the front of the house seemed like an eternity but we pushed on. Once we arrived at the front of the house we creeped like little ninjas across the front yard using the planter wall for cover. However, when we finally made it a whole two doors down we both stopped and looked at one another. My poor baby sister looked up at me like I was marching her to a death camp or some other terrible fate. I looked back at her and said "I don't think we are allowed to runaway from home" She smiled really big and said "Yea mom might get mad if we don't ask first." Naturally, we should have asked to runaway from home and that would remedy the whole situation.
After that it was settled that we would turn back to
"ask permission" about running away from home. So we marched up the drive way, having completely abandoned our stealth ninja moves, and rang the doorbell. When a sleepy version of our mother appeared at the door and realized her two small children were standing out side in their pajamas a look of sheer bewilderment came over her face. "What are you girl's doing?" This is when it hit me that I had to explain what we were doing outside early in the morning with no pants, snacks and underwear. I can't remember what I said but I did fess up to running away and told her we came back to ask permission. For the first time ever there was a real lag time between confession and lecture, my mom seemed like she didn't know if this was a moment to laugh at and put in the baby book or scream and yell to scare us out of a repeat performance. She took the middle road and decided to explain the running away is very serious and that we should never do that again.
About 15 seconds went by and my sister was pretty much over all of it. She was now deeply concerned about what was for breakfast. Her vote was for oatmeal; the kind that had the little dinosaur hatching eggs in them. I, however, was still sitting there contemplating what a terrible thing I had just done. We are not religious but I had my own little catholic guilt thing going on for about 12 minutes. Then I decided I wanted cheerios and life returned to normal.
I have wondered from time to time what might have happened if we had made it more then two houses down the street, or if my mom had woken up at any point in our elaborate packing process, or why we didn't put pants on? Nonetheless, nothing bad happened and all was right with the world.
XOXO
