The Three S’s

     Every child who has at least one sibling has experienced what I like to call “the roll call round.” The “RCR” is a very real form of mental anguish for parents but exhuberant glee and hilarity for children.  Growing up in our home the RCR seemed to occur more often with Mom rather than Dad. RCR drove our Mother to near hysterics. It occured sometimes in the most mundane moment, but more often  when Mom’s little ducklings were not all quite in a row.  A good example of RCR using Susie, Johnny and Rosie as children’s names would go something like this:

Mom:  “It’s 7:22 and you need to be in the car in 2 minutes so we won’t be late to school!  Get your shoes on!”  (Johnny proceeds to hide one of Rosie’s shoes in the pantry, while Susie keeps a watchful eye and decides to do the right thing… tell Mom.  “Johnny put Rosie’s shoe in the pantry, Mom!”  Suddenly caught and being seen as the evil child, Johnny sings like a canary. “I saw Susie put her cream of wheat down the disposal!”  Rosie starts crying for her shoe, and Mom suddenly is hit with RCR.  She has forgotten her childrens’ names.  She looks straight at her first born, (and only son), and yells “ROSIE!!!!!!… SUSIE! I mean, JOHNNY!!”  She is looking straight at Johnny the whole time.  Way to go Mom, by now you have 6 eyes looking at you like you have some type of mental derangement.  It makes all three kids burst into laughter which makes Mom’s head do something that looks straight out of a movie involving exorcism. The kids run to the car and they pray she doesn’t accidentally shut their fingers in the door.

     RCR at our house was a regular routine that we 3 girls knew could occur at any given moment or situation.  The good part was that it was a situation diffuser.  Seriously, how could a grown-up forget what they named us?!  We couldn’t help but live for the RCR.  We learned early on, that if you drove a parent to RCR it would cause the parent to fluster so much, that punishment could be avoided.  It was as if that moment of forgetting their children’s names made them forget punishment! Well, not all the time.  Mom often just gave up and stuck us in corners facing the walls and dared us to move.  Seriously, we felt sorry for her because there was no way a kid could sit still when you could actually “feel” the sibling looking at you.  Yep, sure enough… if you looked, that little bugger was staring at you.  Of course that brought out your biggest weapon, your tongue.  You stuck it out.  Furthermore, you widened the corners of your mouth as you did it.  That brought out a whole new level of RCR!!! She might even use the next door kids’ names this time!!!

     Our Mother finally gave us new names.  No, really!  She started calling all three of us “Sissy” (southern slang for “Sister”…I guess).  I have a Sissy 10 years younger than me and one 5 years younger.  Seriously, Mom had the last laugh.  For most of our childhood she simply called out for Sissy and the 3 of us would come running.  When someone got in trouble, we all 3 got it.  Sissy 1, 2 and 3 spent many hours in the corners with the kitchen oven timer on… getting minutes added on to it every time a tongue came out.  She’s probably the head counter in Heaven as souls enter, but you can bet she’s not in charge of checking off names in the Book of Life.  It gives a whole new meaning to the old southern hymn, “When the Roll is Called up Yonder”…right?  Please Lord, don’t put a parent in charge, at least not our Mom.

see you soon,

~GG

ps:  S2 did get her finger caught in the car door once after RCR, but I think it made her a stronger person 😛!