“The Virginia Slim That Got Me Grounded”

By Jerry Morian

When I was in my teens, my brother and I spent a lot of time at one particular friend’s house, Stanley, simply because his parents were normally gone, either at work or on some errand. We could do pretty much whatever we wanted to do and not have to deal with old people rules. For us brothers, that meant being able to smoke. His parents were quite liberal anyway, so Stanley was able to smoke in front of them, but we didn’t dare. Later, we did manage to relax enough to do just that.

On this day, I had to borrow a cigarette because neither one of us had any. Turns out that the only one in the house with one was Stanley’s sister, Susie. Bumming from her was quite normal because she could afford them a lot easier than we could. She was old enough to work. Unfortunately, she smoked Virginia Slims long. These things seemed like a half a mile long to a young kid like me, but it was smokable and free. I had just lit it up and was on my way out the door to the front yard with my back to the street, closing the door. With that long cigarette hanging out of my mouth, I turned to jump off the porch when I looked at the street where I saw my dad. He had pulled up to ask if I wanted to go rabbit hunting with him, and I hadn’t noticed.

By the time I saw him, I was sure it was too late, but I tried to hide that cigarette anyway. I cupped it in my hand as soon as I could and started walking towards his car. I dropped it on the ground as casual as I could, walked up to the window, where Dad asked if I wanted to go. My thought was, that if I did, everything would be okay. We lived in the same neighborhood, about a quarter mile away, and we had to stop at our house to pick up the guns. On the way there, I got bold and told my dad that I really didn’t want to go. He looked me dead in the eye and said that was fine, and without a second’s pause, added that I was grounded for two weeks. Damn, I should have gone hunting. 😂

What’s a memory where you tried to hide something from your parents — and failed? I’d love to hear it.