Tortured With Pillows

Being the youngest of six children with the next closest in age being nearly eight years older means you're going to deal with some kind of abuse as you grow up. It's just a guarantee that your siblings will ask you to lie for them, make you keep secrets, and generally destroy your sense of security. I was no exception, although I think I've managed quite well in the aftermath. 

At the age of four, maybe five, my oldest sister put me in a pair of her jeans. She wanted to see how they "fit." Number one, when your older sister asks you to do that, don't. She doesn't really care how those jeans fit. Number two, be leery when she asks you to "step outside" in them so she "can get a better look." You're probably thinking I'm an idiot about now, but come on, give me some slack. I was only four or five, and I stupidly trusted her. 

But wait! Before we go outside, let's see what it would look like if these jeans really did fit you. Uh huh. Okay. Sure. 

And thus began my torture by pillows. She shoved pillows in those jeans until they were so tight on me there was no way they were coming off without Vaseline or butter. And then she wanted to go outside. Well, for Pete's sake, I couldn't walk! I wasn't a scrawny kid by any means, but this was well beyond what my legs could manage. 

Somehow, I ended up on the front lawn and SOMEHOW she ended up having a camera. It's like that camera magically appeared at awkward moments. How does that happen? Is there an "awkward moment radar" attached to those things? And to make matters worse, it was a Polaroid, so we had "proof" of the incident as it happened. 

I stood outside and posed for her crazy pictures in her stupid jeans packed like sardines with pillows, and I let her take those pictures. Why? Because I'm awesome. Even at four or five I was awesome. There's no disputing it. She laughed and laughed at me and had a grand ol' time at my expense. 

And then she left me. Some may have considered that a good thing, and I thought it was at first, too. Until I realized that there was no way in heck I could move in those pants stuffed with pillows. There was no way I could walk back to the house. There was no way, even if I made it to the house, to get up the stairs. And there was definitely no way if I got up the stairs that I could get those pants off without a serious intervention. 

So I stood there. On the front lawn. In those jeans stuffed with pillows. And watched cars go by. And I waved. And they honked. And someone (I don't even remember who) came to my rescue, took me in the house, helped me out of the pillow pants, and set me free. Free to plot revenge on my sister. Free to figure out a way to make her life miserable from that moment to the end of eternity. She'd be tortured, all right, but it was not going to be with pillows. 

Unfortunately, I'm not good at revenge. So the picture sits in my book of remembrance, and I'm reminded that things could have been a lot worse. At least she didn't set the pillows on fire, right? But I do wonder if that's why I sometimes feel like I have thunder thighs today. Those dang pillow pants gave me a complex! 

Sounds like I need to get back to plotting my revenge ....