03 - The Camera Caper
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By Burke
Sun Aug 08 02:15:39 1999
Dad was Scrooge personified. If we asked him for a dollar, he'd give us a dime - a quarter if he was in a good mood. (But Mom made up for it.) That's why we were so surprised when he brought home one of those new-fangled Polaroid instant cameras, that developed a picture in 60 seconds. In terms of 1950's dollars, they were expensive, and so was the film, which gave eight photos per pack.
Like the dutiful father he was, he taught the four of us to use it, just in case he wanted to be in the picture, and could not take it himself. It was his pride and joy, and woe be unto anyone who messed with it. He kept it in a glassed-in case in the living room. Our guess was that it was there so that any of his friends came over, they would see it. He had it, he was proud of it, and he didn't mind letting other people know.
It was Friday. Mom and Dad were at work, and Billy, Cathy, Ray, and I wear home from school on what was called an "in-service" day. The teachers had to go to school, but the kids were off.
We all had various chores to do around the house, abd Ray and Cathy, who had gotten up early, were done with theirs. Billy and I had slept in, and were in the basement, sorting and separating laundry. (You'd be amazed at how much laundry is generated by a family of six in a week.)
Cathy came down, and started giving us crap about something (I forget what). Of course, Billy and I rose to the bait, and I soon had her, face down, in a pile of dirty blue jeans and colored T-shirts. I pinned her arms behind her, and Billy rolled up a pair of pajama pants, and tied them around her hands. Another pair was used for her ankles, and a pair of jeans was used to bind her arms. It wasn't pretty, and probably wasn't very effective, but it would hold her for a little while.
To top off our masterpiece, Billy took a pajama top, and wrapped it twice around Cathy's head, with the first wrap as a gag, and the second, as a blindfold.
"You goys about done? We got a ball game at one!" called Ray. "Yeah, Ray. We'll be right up!" I replied. Not satisfied, Ray came down the stairs, and saw Cathy struggling. "Why didn't you tell me you had Cathy?" Ray asked.
Then our little brother did the unforgivable. He ran back upstairs and got Dad's new camera out of the cabinet, and brought it down. Standing about five feet away, he snapped a picture of Cathy, waited the necessary minute, then took another one.
Cathy, whose mouth and eyes were still covered by the PJ top around her head, was still able to distinguish two bright flashes. "Afff's at?" she muffled through her gag.
Meanwhile, Billy, Ray, and I were looking at the two photos, and making rude comments to Cathy, and each other, and laughing up a storm.
We ran out the film pack on Cathy (two more photos), with Ray in one, and Billy and I in the other, all of us in poses of "conquering heroes." Then, we let Cathy go, and showed her the photos. She came unglued! She also made loud threats about cutting our bodies into little pieces, and feeding them to the goldfish, with the larger chunks going to our two cats.
All we could do, was roll around in the dirty laundry, laughing like lunatics, and holding the photos out of Cathy's reach.
We recovered, and tucked the photos into the fronts of our jeans, where Cathy wouldn't dare to reach. Then we discovered we had another problem - how to replace the film we had taken.
Between the four uf us, we had about 75 cents, and a pack of film cost $3.95, plus tax. We needed another $3.40, and we needed it in a hurry.
It is said that the gods protect dogs, damned fools, and children. I guess the gods were smiling on us that day, for, as we got back to the work of sorting the laundry, I came across a $5 bill in the pocket of one of Dad's pants. Billy turned up a couple of quarters from a pair of Mom's slacks. For us, this was an incredible stroke of luck. And, on top of that, it wasn't stealing, either. Mom had made the house rule long ago, that whoever sorts the laundry, gets to keep any money they find. (We suspected that she slipped a few quarters and dimes in, when we were out.)
We biked off to the store and got the film, then shot off four shots, so that the camera would have the same amount of film as it had when Ray got it. As for the photos, they were the perfect "blackmail" material for us to use on Cathy, but we had our own sense of honor. Later in the day, we took them out to a clearing in the woods behind our house, and burned them, much to Cathy's relief and delight.
But thinking about it all these years later, I wish I had kept one. But it was just too much of a risk to keep any around. If Dad had ever found one, we'd all have been grounded for life.
END
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Burke's stories
- 01 - Hogtie the Rustler (m+/m+)
- 02 - Sister Act (f/m, m/m, m/f)
- 03 - The Camera Caper (mm/f)
- 04 - Penalties and Disguises (*/*)
- 05 - Bandages, Bedsheets and Other Oddities (mmm/f, ff/mmm)
- 06 - Nancy's "Screen Play" (ff/m+, m/ff, ff/m)
- 07 - The Eyes Don't Lie (m+f+/mmm)
- 08 - Grounded! (f/mm)
Index of all stories in the "Archive for Everyone" section