On The Bus

I was sitting toward the back of the bus. Yes, I take the bus sometimes. Anyway there I was sitting there, minding my own business, actually listening to other people talk around me. You’d be amazed the kind of things people will talk about in public when they think no one is paying attention to them. But, sitting there listening, and I honed in a conversation between a pair of sisters I sort of know.

The live about two blocks away from me in a cul-de-sac. I went to elementary and high school with the older one, but haven’t really been around her since graduation. We weren’t close so I just sort of know who she is and where she lives and I think our parents know each other a little too, but that’s not really relevant. The younger one always seemed a lot nicer but that’s probably because she was always trying to fit in with the older girls, her sister’s age.

So, as you can probably imagine, I noticed they were talking about spanking. In particular a spankings they had both got fairly recently. The older one was scolding the younger girl. Not to get off topic again, but the older one is like my age and the younger one is probably 16 or 17. I don’t remember when her birthday is if I ever knew, but the point of course is they aren’t little kids. Anyway, the old one is going on and on and on and on, (and on and on and on, did I say on and on?) about how unfair this spanking was and I was trying very hard not to give any sign that I was hearing, listening, or most importantly amused by what I was hearing.

The story unfolded in a rather irregular manner but I pieced together enough that I believe I can put some chronology to the events leading up to these two poor girls getting spanked.

It all began with their father complaining one evening about getting a hundred dollar bill from the bank instead of his normal five twenties. For those who live in big cities or outside the US, hundred dollar bills can be a nightmare in a small town. Nobody ever wants to accept them because they inevitable don’t have change, to the point many stores have signs at the entrance and registers tell you they don’t accept bill larger than US $20.

Now what can such a thing have to do with these two girls getting spanked? Hold your horses, I’m getting to it!

This dinner time conversation happened on a Friday night. Come Saturday morning, guess what? That’s right, the $100 bill went miraculously missing. Now the spankings starting to make a little more since right? Yes, of course it is.

But,

Why would both of them get spanked for it? Would they have really collaborated to steal it?

Keep reading….

Their father, rather than assuming guilt, decided to search his children’s bedrooms. It seems perfectly legit to me, but the two of them seemed utterly outraged and yet surprisingly not surprised by the event. Like a parent has no right to go through their child’s belongings in their home. I mean it is one thing if you are living on your own and mom or dad come over and start searching your stuff, but in their house, it’s kind of like an implied right. Yeah, I know not all of you will agree with me on that point, but all I got to say is consider the kinds of trouble you might get into if your child has illegal substances hidden in your house and some government agency with search warrant pays you a visit….

Back to the searching.

Their father does his search and finds the $100 in their little brother’s bedroom. He’s like 7, a lot younger than his sisters and from the conversation it’s pretty clear they don’t like him much. Words like nuisance, brat, idiot, nerd, geek, and some four letter ones better not repeated, gave me the inclination, but maybe those are just affectionate terms in their household. Far be it for me to judge.

Apparently it was well hidden underneath his mattress. Their father immediately suspects something isn’t right. His angelic little boy would not be a thief. Right? The sisters were quite outraged by the assumption their father made. What assumption is that? The assumption that one of his darling daughters was trying to set up his boy.

It seems totally unfair. What an unreasonable father! He’s unfit to parent spanking his daughters for something his son obviously did.

Hold on! The story isn’t finished yet.

The father calls the sisters into the family den for a semi-private conversation. He tells them he knows one of them took the money and put in their brother’s bedroom. He asks for a confession. None was forthcoming. They professed their innocence, but he just wouldn’t listen. He sent them to their rooms to wait for him with specific instructions. Strip below the waist, lay face down on their beds with their pillows propping their butts up into the air. He made clear his intention to spank them both until one of them confessed and then the guilt one would receive their real spanking which would be increasingly worse, the longer they waited to come clean.

It sounds cruel. What if neither is guilty? What if the boy really stole the money and now he’s getting the laugh of his little life as both his meanie sisters get spankings for something they didn’t do?

It’s still not over!

After three turns getting 10 of their father’s belt each turn, the old one confesses. She maintains to her sister, she didn’t do it, but she just couldn’t take anymore. Sadly, she ended up taking a lot more. Once confessed her father announced she was going to get the 30 he’d given her sister unfairly, plus ten more for lying when he first asked, plus a two minute spanking with her own hairbrush and then she was grounded for a month as well with an early bedtime the whole month.

Faced with the sudden reality that confessing was far from the easier way out, she recants her confession and swears the boy must have done it himself. It should come as no real shock that her father was less than receptive to her born again innocence. He threatens her with an even longer and bedtime spankings which quickly convinces her that recanting her false conviction is even less of an option.

At this point, one really feels sorry for her. Obviously her father is cruel and uninterested in the truth, right?

Not so fast…

The real punishment begins and she starts to wail and sob and cry. The whole house can hear her getting her tail whipped and begging for mercy like one might expect out of a little girl rather than the college student she is supposed to be. The younger sister then starts to feel bad. At first I couldn’t figure why she would feel bad. Elation would seem more appropriate since she wasn’t still getting spanked herself and would undoubtedly have considerable leeway in coming weeks having been falsely punished.

However, the younger sister just couldn’t bear to listen to the cries of her big sister. She burst into the bedroom and interrupts the whole thing. Their father was startled and almost angry at the intrusion, but then the younger sister blurts out an entire confession. Turns out she was indeed behind the theft and trying to setup her baby brother all along.

Yes, that’s right not only did she confess to their father, but there on the bus she admits to her sister that it was indeed her doing with the intention of landing their snot nosed brother in some trouble for a change. Apparently he’s too well behaved for his own good so a naughty teenager felt the need to sully his reputation. Only problem was their father had it figured from the moment he found the bill. Apparently he did know his children quite well.

What about him believing the wrong one when she falsely confessed? Doesn’t that mean he was wrong too?

Well good questions, but as I listened the older sister admitted to the younger one, “I wish I had thought of it myself. But I would have hid it better, cause the under the bed thing is what tipped Dad off from the start. If you’d put it in his socks or even his wallet, then Dad just might have believed it.”

The sisters laughed at this and then the younger one says, “We’ll get him next time.”

Now what I’m wondering is what do you all think about the way their father handled things?

Was he wrong to assume his daughters were responsible? He was right but couldn’t he have been wrong and he’d been wrong wouldn’t this all have been horribly unfair?

I don’t know if I totally agree with his methods, but I have to say, from what I heard out the sisters, I don’t have much sympathy for them either.