No Day at the Circus

I have been thinking about this particular event in my life forever and my baby sister and I laugh about it a lot. At the time it wasn't funny. It.... sucked. 

I was 11 years old. It was the summer before I started the 7th grade and I was almost 12. It was one of those times when my Mom didn't live with us. She often did this but we were pretty used to adapting to her absence. 

We worked really, really hard for kids. I'm not complaining because it has made me a much stronger person and it has made me a person to see a job that needs to get done and do it.

Oh, did I mention I have had OCD. All my life or as long as I can remember everything had to be perfect or not at all. My baby sister and I used to make deals to help each other with our chores. I was so trusting and I have to say, I still am to this day. I believe someone's word even if they've lied to me  many times before. I always think this will be the time that they don't lie. 

So, back to chores. I had OCD so badly that every Saturday I wanted to wash all my blankets. Not just change the sheets, I wanted to wash my blankets, my bedspread everything. I wanted nothing but fresh clean bedding around me. My baby sister was ummmm the opposite. She could care less if she ever changed her sheets. She would crawl into bed dirty after a long day of chores or horseback riding or whatever. She is still like that to an extent. 

My Dad had heard there was going to be a circus in the town where we went to school. He thought that would cheer us up since our mom had once again decided she needed to "find herself" and left us. All week long he had been telling us what types of things you see at a circus. I mean we were really country girls! The only thing that My Dad had said is, "our chores have to be done before the circus on Friday". No problem. We were good at chores. Well, when I cleaned the kitchen even at the age of 10 years old I would move every single thing sitting on the counter and use Pinesol or Fantastic behind the item and under where the item sat. I would take the cookies from the cookie jar and put them into a bowl and wash the cookie jar by hand so it will be clean to put the cookies back in. I would bring all of our food out of the cupboards and wipe under where it goes and do the same for our glasses and plates. This kind of behavior would have been fine for Spring Cleaning but not every day cleaning.  After a while my baby sister got tired of this. She thought if we just clean around things it would be good enough. 

Well, being the bossy big sister that could easily force her to do things because I was also super strong, she did what I said and things were done my way. I stripped our beds and washed all of our linens. We were not supposed to use our dryer because it costs too much money to run so we had a huge clothes line and supposedly things smelt fresher that way. I will disagree with this until the day I die. Number one reason I don't like things dried on the line is they are "crispy". The number two reason and it is enough for me to never do it again is as tough as I am and fearless, any kind of bug will send me to another place. I hate bugs. I hate butterflies. Any creepy thing that flies or crawls, I hate em. Lady bugs bite me. Now a lot of people don't believe that but I have some really good tasting blood or something because my Dad gets bitten by lady bugs and one of his brothers got bitten by lady bugs and one of my baby sister's boys gets bitten by lady bugs. It's that good ole Indian blood. (oops, sorry Native American). I actually have allowed a stupid lady bug to land on me without freaking out and show my husband that it bites while we snuggled in the hammock. He was amazed as anyone that they bite. 

Our house was as sparkling as it had ever been, our linens were dry and now the final touch. To put all the linens back on our beds. We did Dad's Queen size bed first. It looked and smelled fabulous. We then went into our sleeping space. I call it a sleeping space because that trailer only had one bedroom and my baby sister and I used the dining room as a sleeping space. Well, my sister talked me into helping her make her bed first. Now, I know better than to trust her. She always allows me to help her then says, "never mind" to me about helping me. Once again I trusted her after a heated argument about her having to keep her word this time. Well, We got her bed perfect. I do mean perfect. I was a pain in the ass. Every single thing had to match. The top sheets had to come down equally on each side of the bed before we tucked it in. The bedspread had to have equal size sides too. We got her bed made with tons of grumbling from her about it not mattering how perfect it was. As soon as it was my turn to have my bed made, she told me, "nah, you are too picky and I can't live up to what you want me to do" I was so furious with her and let her know it but I also knew that she had that same stubbornness in her that I had going through my veins. I made my bed and it took about 20 minutes to make a twin size bottom bunk not close to any walls. It was perfect. There, maybe my day will get better after all.

We knew that our dad would be home from work soon and after a quick dinner and feeding the animals he would want to leave for the circus. We heard Dad's truck pull into the yard and I started to get the dinner on the table. Right before I got the plates out of the cupboard I saw my baby sister stand on the corner of my bed with her shoes on and pull herself up onto her bed. I came unglued just in time for Dad to walk into the house. I stripped off my bedspread and started to charge towards the shed outside where we kept our laundry. Dad stopped me and asked me what was wrong. I was so upset that I was close to tears. I told him of how we got all the chores done and washed all the blankets and linens and made all the beds and then how my baby sister stepped on my bed and now it has germs on it. My Dad said, " let me look at that blanket banana." He looked it over carefully inspecting it and smelled it and declared it clean. I was so horrified. I didn't know how I would sleep with that filthy thing on my bed. I ranted and raved about it and he shushed me up with one look. He explained to me that he is very glad that I am clean but that washing all of my blankets and bedspreads every week is ridiculous. He said I can change my sheets once a week and wash the rest of the things once a month and with that one look, the conversation was over with the exception of my Dad saying to my baby sister to use the end of the bunk beds to climb up instead of stepping on my bed. 
 I went and put the bedspread back on my bed but not carefully. I finished getting dinner on the table and the conversation switched to my Dad asking us what kind of animals we hoped to see at the Circus?

We ate dinner and did the chores and then my Dad went into the bathroom to Primp and get ready to take us to the circus. While my dad was in the bathroom my baby sister exchanged bedspreads with me since she knew how badly the one with the germs on it from her shoe was going to bother me. I thought that was so nice and such a loving thing to do. I hugged her and thanked her close to tears again. 

After Dad got ready, we all piled into our fantastic Forest Green pinto and drove towards town. The conversation was all about the animals that we would see at the circus. Things we had only seen on TV. Elephants, Tigers, Lions, people dangling from high above doing tricks and clowns. Neither my sister or I was very excited about the clowns. We both thought they were creepy and hoped that they stayed away from us.

We got to the circus and the first thing I noticed was there was a ton of people there and it was soooo dirty. We stood in line at the ticket counter and my dad said, "two children and one adult". The man behind the ticket counter looked at me and my 5'10" height and told my dad sorry buddy but there is no way that gal is only 12. My dad was so pissed. He said, "not only is she not 12 she is under 12 until 2 more weeks", The man argued with my Dad saying that I was too big to be 11. It was so humiliating and I hated that it made my dad so mad. I wished that I had the extra 50 cents to pay the man just to shut him up. My dad told him it wasn't the extra money it was the principle that why should he have to pay extra because his daughter is taller than normal. I was feeling better and better about myself by the minute as you can guess.  I looked at my baby sister and said, " maybe they will allow me to join the circus as a tall freak." 

After what seemed like 20 minutes of arguing and my Dad's face getting redder and redder, we were admitted to the circus. The man running the booth basically called my Dad a liar and I didn't think we would make it into the circus at all because my dad wanted to beat the heck out of that man that called him a liar. 

Now, if you know my dad, things are not dropped easily. In other words he has a loooooong fuse but once it is lit. Watch out. My baby sister and my Dad and I sat at the circus. None of us enjoyed the circus. The elephants temporarily took away all thoughts of the 20 minute argument outside. The Tiger's were amazing especially to my baby sister who listed cats as her favorite animal. I loved the dogs that did tricks and all three of us loved the horses. They were so beautiful. I wanted to teach my horse back at home how to jump on his back legs like he was dancing. My Dad was generous with us. Inviting us to have cotton candy, peanuts, coke, whatever we wanted. I know that he felt bad for making a scene. 

After the circus we were heading towards the car but my Dad stopped us and wanted to speak to someone in charge of  the tickets. He got his wish and I was paraded around so they could see me and ask me what year I was born, etc. It was all so humiliating and I have never been to a circus again. Well, unless you count Circus Circus at Reno!

I think back at this particular time in my life and I'm pretty sure that my fighting for the one person who can't stick up for him/herself, well, this is where it comes from. I'm proud that my Dad has given me a fighting spirit and a spirit that stands for those who are unable to stand for themselves!