This would be such a night.

A voice from the darkness.
“Hello?”
Mom answered from the living room couch, “Hi Timmy, Come on in.”
“Are Rick and Doug home? We had plans to play Parcheesi this evening.”
“Yes they are. They are expecting you upstairs. I think they have potato chips too. Would you like some ice tea to take up?”
“Oh no Mrs. Crane, I’m trying to cut sugar out and lose a few pounds. But thank you for offering.”
“All right then. Go ahead on up and have a good time.”
“Thank you Mrs. Crane. I’m sure we will!”

Timmy (a.k.a., Fitzy) sure could pour on the “Eddie Haskell” in a pinch. With security clearance obtained, Fitzy bolted up the endless flights of stairs. Winded, he rapped the secret knock on the locked door to gain entry into the laboratory of the stupidimentors. Once inside and the vault secured once again, the stupidimenting commenced.

Doug was leaning out the window. “Shit! The basket is caught on an freakin’ branch!” he barked.
“Here! Let me try,” Fitzy yelped.

A moment later, “Nevermind! It’s coming!”
Fitzy sighed, “You guys owe me big time for this one! I stole them from Joe and Paul. They’re having a big party and won’t even know they're gone!”

Of course what Fitzy was referring to was the basket full of cheer ... no, spectacular cheer ... that he confiscated from his older brothers and Doug was now carefully pulling through the window: cold Michelobs and Dutch Masterson cigars. It was the stuff of great stupidimentation. And stupidimenting they did that sultry night. So much so that Doug left Rick in charge of “discardation”. Big mistake—especially after such a robust episode of idiocy.

The clean-up was usually airtight. Doug lowered the basket to the ground as Fitzy said his slurred Haskell good byes to the folks. Once outside, Fitzy dumped the ashes, retrieved the empties and tossed them into neighborhood-kid-hater Otto Vanderbeek’s perfectly groomed hedges on his way home. Doug pulled the basket up before going to sleep and placed everything in the closet. A smooth operation really.

But not on this particular night. Rick was a bit more easy-going about the whole process. Well, actually Rick was blitzed. He tied off the basket too high up for Fitzy to reach and Fitzy wasn’t good with the follow through, leaving a basket full of empty cheer dangling along the side of the house. Rick fell asleep in the meantime.

Saturday morning eventually arrived after a long, humid night of off-and-on sleep. It was a window cleaning Saturday to boot, one of the handful of chores assigned to me. So there I was, a bit tired, minding my own business, just windexing away, whistling a slightly merry tune, when I got to the side dining room window, positioned directly below the infamous third floor portal. Mom was dusting the dining room table nearby. I pulled open the drapes and there it was! My Easter basket with a bunch of crap in it! Before the import registered, I blurted out, “Hey! What’s my Easter Basket doing—”

It was about the time the word “doing” came out of my mouth that I realized what the import part was.

“What did you say Bobby?”
“Um, nothing ma. I said nothing.” A noble effort at cover up but way too lame for the likes of mom.

In a spurt of panic I jerked the drapes closed, pulling the rods from the wall—as usual dad didn't use all the nails. Everything tumbled to the floor exposing my Easter basket, overflowing with empty beer cans and ashtrays. A more telling still-life of teen tomfoolery would be hard to find.

l will say one thing about mom, she meted out punishment fairly and swiftly. Within seconds she searched through dad’s tool box, found a screw driver and ascended the stairs to the third floor, speaking in tongues all along the way. She unscrewed the locked, security door hinges from the frame and removed the entire door. Clutching it in her hands, she proclaimed to the astonishment of the drowsy stupidimentors sleeping inside that entertainment of all forms on the third floor would desist immediately and something about teen privacy being a privilege, not a natural born right as the constitution might have some believe.

I smirked as I listened from the second floor hallway below—BOBS (i.e., Boring Oldest Brother Syndrome, an affliction I had) at its worst.

I do believe later that day when things quieted down, Doug hammered Rick with a couple of forearm shivers and placed him in a particularly painful full nelson for several minutes. Punishment travels downhill very quickly in the underbelly world of male siblings.

But within weeks the knuckleheads were at it again as episode two emerged when the boys became attic horticulturists.