Creep

I am not perfect, nor do I profess to have never given my parents any problems in my youth. In fact, I went out of my way, like most kids to master my sneaking skills. I waited until they fell asleep before I'd tiptoe into the living room and stretch the super long phone cord ever so gently along the baseboard of the walls. Then, I placed it into the crease of my bedroom door, where I'd slide the cord underneath, and commence to talking, or rather whispering. Sometimes it would be a boy, but at that age, most often it was my best friend. We would just chit chat while watching the Home Shopping Network and fantasizing about what we'd like to order. Oddly, we did that a lot.

As I got older, 9 times out of 10, it was, most assuredly, a boy I was sneaking and speaking with on the phone. The late night calls naturally progressed to secret meetings in the park, to after school outings, to full out playing hooky together. I know.  I know. I keep my eyes and ears open.  The luxury is having an alarm system and indicators on every door, so if any one of those doors opens...momma knows!  

I wish I had a picture to give you a visual of the layout of the place where I grew up, because you might find it extremely hard to believe the shenanigans I pulled. We basically lived in a condo style apartment, so the living spaces weren't grandiose. We had a living room dining room combination, a small kitchen, and a hallway that held one bathroom, a "laundry room" and two bedrooms. Somehow, I managed to sneak out of my parents' house while they slept. I rarely went someplace, but rather opted to sit out front kissing my boyfriend. OK, there WASSS this one incident, in which I won't delve too much, where my best friend Sabs and I snuck out and came back so late that we actually passed my dad in a car when he was leaving home and on his way to work! That was the closest call...ever! Nevertheless, we crept back into the house, climbed the 14 steps in the entrance of our condo, slid down the hall and past my parents'ADJACENT bedroom, into mine. 

So one night, after a nice dinner out with my girls, we were driving down some unknown street. Though born and raised in DC, my navigation skills in the city perplexes and annoys everyone, so sorry I can't remember the name, ok?! Sabs is driving, I'm riding shotgun and Jam is in the back. I peep someone on the left hand side coming out of a window, that's only a few feet from the ground. 

I screamed, "Look at that girl. She's sneaking out of the house!" My girls whoop it up laughing and Jam says, "Turn around, go back. GO BACK!" Sabs makes the world's slowest and most cautious u-turn and we pray that she's still in the DC metropolitan area, LOL. She was! We turn right on her street and pull up beside her just as she's putting on the pink hoodie she was holding in her hand, mid-jump. I rolled my window down and the exchange went something like this:

Me - Are you over 18?
Her - (looking flustered) No.
Me - (neck rolling and lips pouted) Um, hm. We saw you sneaking out of your parents' house and we're gonna tell 'em.
Her - (looking flustered still and softly mumbling) OK, go ahead.

In the background, like out of a movie, was a random older lady, probably in her 70's, holding a brown paper grocery bag, and looking on. The little truant was standing at the driver door of an SUV, which we later surmised that she was about to steal! As we're pulling off, it appears as though the senior is saying something to her, so I start yelling, "That's right. Tell her momma. Get your behind in that house, ain't nuttin out here in these streets for you girl!" LOL, was quite the scene. Of course, we don't know what happened, but I'd like to think that she'll think lonnnng and hard again, before she rolls out in the middle of the damn night, to go God knows where, with God knows whom.