Last week commenter Kim Bosch laughed about the fact that I literally buried a lie when I was eight years old, which reminded me of other lies I buried that year. Eight, apparently, was the Year of Burying Incriminating Evidence. I puzzled over this while reminiscing. What deep psychological forces were at work that would compel a child to start burying evidence at the age of eight?
Then I remembered that this was the year we lived in a house, instead of an apartment. That was the year we had a yard to bury things in.
One evening I was bouncing back and forth on the couch, listening to my mother talk to a co-worker on the phone.
“Oh, you’re so lucky!” my mother gushed. “That sounds wonderful! I’d give anything for that to happen to me!”
When she hung up, I asked her what was so wonderful.
“My friend got home from work tonight and her daughter had made her a surprise dinner!” she said. She sounded so envious.
I decided if a surprise dinner was all it would take to make my mother happy, I was going to do it.
The next afternoon, when I got home from school, and my mother was still at work, I started cooking.
Here, as best as I can remember, is my recipe for Casserole.
1. Line the big green casserole dish with slices of Wonder Bread.
2. Peel an orange and toss in the wedges.
3. Add two broken eggs.
4. Add a few shakes from every single spice jar.
5. Add one package of red jello powder.
6. Place casserole dish on stove element and turn to high.
7. Wait for the dish to explode, sending shards of broken glass and burnt ingredients all over the kitchen.
I was so freaked out, I was shaking. My heart was pounding. I was going to be in Very Big Trouble.
My only hope was to try to prevent my mother from finding out. I gathered up all the broken bits of glass and burnt food and took them outside. I started burying them in the back yard. Not in one hole, mind you. I frantically dug multiple holes. For some reason, I thought I’d be safer if there was only a little bit of evidence in a lot of places, instead of a lot of evidence in one place.
When I went back into the house, I freaked out even more, because it stunk like something had burnt. I rushed to the bathroom and returned with a can of air freshener. I sprayed my little heart out. Then I realized there was burnt mess everywhere, including all four kitchen walls, so I had to scrub them down. While doing that, I found more bits of broken glass and food all over the kitchen, so I ran back outside to bury them. When I got back in, it still smelled like something had burnt, so I sprayed lots more Florient into the air.
I continued in this manner, racing against time between the back yard and the kitchen and the can of Florient, desperately trying to hide all the evidence before my mother got home from work.
And then finally I just went and sat in the dark living room and bounced on the couch and waited and worried. I worried harder than I’d ever worried before.
She walked in the door and hadn’t taken three steps when her nose twitched and she demanded “WHAT BURNT?”
I burst into tears. The kind of tears where you have no control.
When I finally managed to tell her what had happened, I was astonished that she wasn’t even mad at me.
(Later she told me that her friend’s daughter – the one who had made that wonderful surprise dinner for her mom – was in her twenties.)
Wow, that’s bizarre on so many levels. You must have led a very kitchen-sheltered life because I sure knew how to prepare a simple meal at 8. If I were you, I’d try that recipe again (only in the oven) and see how it is… just for the heck of it.
Me too ZUP. When I was 7 and Mom was away for the week having baby number 7 I prepared most of the meals. I was sheltered in other ways though . . .
Oh come on you two.
Get in the spirit of it.
By the time I was eight, no wait six I could go out and hunt down a pheasant for dinner and then cook a 3 course meal and select the best wine to complement the entire evening. You girls are so limited in your capacities.
Now try again and see if you can’t grow those stories a bit.
Zoom was 12 and babysitting and had to phone home to find out how to cook hotdogs for the kids. I don’t recall cooking as a child either, but I am sure that we must have spent some time in the kitchen because one of our mother’s greatest regrets of her childhood was not being able to learn to cook from her grandmother…so I can’t imagine that she stopped us. Mind you, I could put dinner on the table for 8 people in 15 minutes all through high school…still can
Isn’t it crazy how you think these things will make your parents want to kill you and then they find out and they’re like, “meh”? I realize now that I only got into trouble when my INTENTION was bad. I set out to cause harm. Parents have some sort of radar for these things…
As for destroying evidence, what about BURNING things? Anyone?
Yeah, I agree with Kim. But that is something you only realize when you grow up and particularly when you become a parent yourself. I only scold my kid when he is deliberately naughty not if he unintentionally does something bad in which case he just gets a lecture, but I don’t think he realizes the difference though it is obvious to me.
Do you remember why you would bounce on the counch, Zoom? Was it just for fun, like playing on a trampoline, or was it a way to calm nerves? My kid wants to bounce on my bed whenever he has the chance and I’m always trying to make him to stop, as your mom probably did with you! I don’t remember ever feeling the urge to bounce on beds or sofas when I was a kid, so I’m curious as to why some kids like to do that so much.
XUP and Grace, I’m impressed you could both cook by the age of 8. Maybe it’s because you were both the eldest of many. My culinary accomplishments at that age were limited to Puffed Wheat and cinnamon toast. I also remember chopping maraschino cherries for cherry bread.
Dave, that’s telling ’em!
Deb, I knew how to cook hotdogs at 12, I just couldn’t remember how much water the recipe called for. (Also, I have no recollection of either one of us cooking dinner in high school. I’m guessing you started after I left home?)
Kim, actually I recall many times getting into trouble even when I wasn’t deliberately doing anything wrong. As for your question about burning evidence – I never burned any evidence – I was too scared of fire! Did you?
Lucy…bouncing on the couch. I was a back-and-forth bouncer, not an up-and-down bouncer or a side-to-side bouncer. (These things are important.) I don’t know why I did it, only that I needed to. It was like an addiction. If I couldn’t do it for a period of time (like more than 8 hours), I’d get anxious and it would be all I could think of until I could get my fix. I started really young and continued to about age 12. (I still love rocking chairs.)
Indeed I did burn things. Empty cookie boxes, notes…always as a way of destroying the evidence. I tended to use burying as more of a preservation technique, actually. Like when I broke my arm and had my cast removed. I buried that. Why? I think because a) I didn’t know what else to do with it b) I didn’t want to throw it away c) I wanted to keep it somewhere forever and d) it smelled terrible. It’s still buried in my parents backyard, sealed in a ziplock freezer bag casket.
That’s hilarious! I buried a box of smarties in the woods once, and spent the rest of the summer trying to find it.
OK, that’s interesting, about the back-and-forth bouncing.
I guess at least it is less destructive to the sofa/mattress then up-and-down bouncing! 
My kid is only 5, hope he won’t want to continue until he is 12. I think he does it for fun, not as an addiction though he does have other addictions…. I should get him a trampoline.
I don’t remember ever burying evidence as a kid. I wouldn’t have been able to get away with it anyway – my siblings would have noticed out in the yard digging and gotten suspicious….
The whole time Mom was in university I was the one that came home from school every day and made supper. We ate a lot of dishes with ground beef because I would forget to take the meat out of the freezer before I got on the bus in the morning, so Scotch mince and spagetti were a mainstay during those years.
Yes, a trampoline, good idea!
Deb, that explains it – Mom didn’t start university until after I left home.