Blogging for Books #10: Cruelty (Guest Author: Mark Sichel)

For this Blogging for Books, write about the meanest thing you have ever done - either to another person or to yourself. (Topic idea credit: Jenorama)

Have you ever been on a snipe hunt? A snipe is a small bird, reportedly very dumb (along the lines of a do-do). In the south, if you are going on a snipe hunt, you take a small brown paper bag and go into the woods. To hunt a snipe, hold out the paper bag and scratch the bottom. At the same time, call "here snipe!".

At one of my early sleepovers, my sister decided she and her friends would take me and my gymnastics team (sleeping over at my house at the time) on a snipe hunt. Most of us at this point had never heard of a snipe and were quite willing to go along. What my sister and her friends did not expect was that we would be curious. We went hunting in the house for our Worldbook Encyclopedia and looked up what a snipe was (other than what we'd been told above). After discovering the trick, we decided to play along and get revenge after.

At the time, we lived just down the street from Stone Mountain Park (my parents still live in that house), so we headed to the park for our hunt. After failing to catch any of the small precocious birds, we headed home. Preceeded apparently quite quickly by my sister and her girl friends.

After my sister and her friend went to bed (one went home, the other two barricaded themselves in to the bedroom), we "borrowed" my dad's shaving cream (we had his blessing). We managed to leverage the door open just far enough for me to squeeze through. I then opened the door for the rest. We covered each of the girls in shaving cream and stole some of their clothing.

My sister is short (as an adult she's only 4'11"), her friend is quite tall. When my sister and her friend woke up, they were lacking their bras for getting dressed (necessary for teenage girls that have them). They soon (well sort of) discovered where they'd disappeared to. My sister's was hanging from the chandelier in the living room (the living room ceiling is 14' high, the chandelier only hangs down 4'). My sister's friend's bra had been "filled and frozen". We filled one side with ketchup, the other with mustard, and froze it.

Now you may ask is this the "meanest" I've done. Probably not, but it was certainly one of the most fun "mean" things I've gotten away with.