Mother was never happier than when she was “fooling” Daddy. She loved to pack something crazy in his lunch box, especially on April Fools day. And, of course, Daddy was never happier then when he could pretend the joke, whatever it was, didn’t work.
One of the longest-running tricks she played on him was her secret charge accounts.
It started small.
She took us school shopping and he had, as usual, not given her nearly enough money. So she charged some things at Sears – after all, blouses had gone up to $1.99 — a far cry from what we used to pay at Atlantic Mills. It was super easy to get that Sears credit card. Fill out some paperwork and walk away with free clothes!
Now you have to understand that Daddy was 100% against using credit, for anything, at any time. So the daily delivery of mail, with that impending bill from Sears, became a thing.
She admonished us to be sure to get the mail every day before Daddy came home so he wouldn’t see the bill. This wasn’t a one time event, by the way. Once she learned she could buy things and then just chip away at paying it off, she became quite good at it. She’d secretly send small cash payments through the mail.
One sunny summer day, we were all playing out in the yard and forgot to get the mail. Mother burst out of the back door.
“Daddy’s coming! Get the mail!” she hollered, and we dropped our hula hoops and started racing down the driveway to beat him to the mailbox.
We lost.
He pulled over, got the mail and came to the house, came into the kitchen and dropped it on the table while he went to wash up.
Mother kept eyeing the stack of mail, hoping the Sears bill wasn’t there.
It was.
He started opening the mail and stopped.
“What the hell?” he said, a little loudly.
“What’s this?” He held out the Sears bill.
Mother stammered and told him she ran out of school clothes money and had to charge a few things. “But it’s OK,” she assured him, lying straight-faced. “I got a job and I’ll pay for it right away.”
The next day she went over to the Wonder Alls Factory and did just that. Wonder Alls was a children’s play-clothesline and the factory in nearby Buffalo was always hiring. It was miserable work and paid poorly.
Did I mention she hated sewing?
And the first day on the job, one of her co-workers ran a big industrial-sized sewing needle right through her thumb. She had to go to the emergency room. Mother was terrified of the machine.
I don’t think she was too good at her job. Employees got to buy their mistakes at a deep discount. So lets just say that summer, we wore several outfits with crooked appliques on them. We didn’t care. They were new!
Mother quit that job as soon as she paid the bill.
And believe me we were sure to get the mail after that.(No, she didn’t stop charging, she just got better at getting the mail.)
And then there was The Fake Fur. A story for another day. And many other things over the years.
But her biggest charge came some years later, after our older sister, Andrea, was married.
She and her husband, Ron, had bought a parcel of land on Highway 55 on the otherside of Maple Lake. Like many young couples in Minnesota those days, they built a basement house and lived in it until they could afford to build the upper part. It was a common practice. They didn’t have much except a new baby and lots of bills. Mother wanted to get Andrea a nice rocking chair for her and the baby, so she bought (I should say charged!) one and arranged to have it delivered right before Christmas. Unfortunately, the delivery guy showed up on a day when Andrea had gone into Minneapolis to do her own Christmas shopping and was planning to spend the night at her in-laws.
The delivery guy, being conscientious, saw a storm coming in and didn’t feel right about leaving the rocking chair just sitting on the exposed back porch, so he drove into town and asked Len Driscoll at the garage if he knew anyone else to contact. Len knew I was working at The Record Shop (Another story) and sent him to me. I told him I’d take care of it.
Unfortunately, Mother was also in the city, shopping, so I hatched a plan. Cindy and her boyfriend, Mike.
Also unfortunately, Cindy came home from school sick. A high temp and sore throat. I told her what our dilemma was, and my plan, so she pretended to feel fine and we told Daddy that Mike was taking us to the basketball game that night. He said fine and we took off.
The storm was rolling in, so Mike and I carried Andrea’s oversized and vary heavy rocking chair, wrapped in slippery plastic, across their icy, slanted back yard, slipping and sliding all the way to the shed. But we got it in and then headed home. Daddy was surprised to see us but we told him that Cindy was getting sick (she was always getting sick) so he didn’t seem suspicious.
When Mother got home later form Minneapolis, I tackled her, dragged her into her bedroom and told her what happened. She was grateful at our cleverness!
Now, the reason Mother bought Andrea the chair was because Daddy had pissed her off. A few weeks earlier, she had said to him: “Andrea’s refrigerator is on its last legs. She had to hold the door shut with a broom handle. How about you give her the model you have for sale up a the shop. Nobody’s going to buy that thing.”
“Are you kidding?” he said. “That’s a perfectly good refrigerator. Someone will buy it. I’m not giving it away.”
Thus, the rocking chair.
But about two days before Christmas, one morning at breakfast, Daddy said “I guess I could give Andrea and Ron that refrigerator. It won’t get full price anyway.” (Daddy wasn’t a long range planner.)
Mother nearly dropped her teeth in shock. Because she hadn’t wanted Daddy to get suspicious so she had bought Andrea a new lamp.
So that Christmas, Andrea and Ron got a new lamp. A new rocking chair. And a new refrigerator. Andrea still says it was her best Christmas’ ever!
EPILOGUE by CINDY: Many years later I was living in northern Idaho with my husband and a small baby. Mother had to have surgery so I went home to help out, and mainly be there for her when she got out of the hospital. After her surgery, they let me go in and sit with her in the recovery room. As she slowly came out of the anesthetics she opened her eyes, motioned to me to come over, and whispered in my ear: “Did you get the mail?” THAT was my Mother in a nut shell.
I should add that around that same time, while Mother was in the hospital, Daddy noted my heading to the mailbox every day and said “You know that I know that your Mother has credit cards, right? And I said, “I don’t think she knows you know!” And he said “Yah, I just like to watch her run to the mailbox every day.” THAT was my Daddy in a nutshell.
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