Allen's

I grew up reasonably close to a small grocery store, Allen's.

And for a good part of my childhood we lived with my dad's parents.

Living at Grandma and Grandpa's house was always a busy time. The cousins were always around, and since I was the 4th child, there were plenty of older cousins hanging around for me to play with too. This was great news for me since it meant I was (in my head) automatically inducted into the "older and wiser" club. This was probably not great news for my older and wiser siblings and cousins as it meant they were automatically inducted into the "babysitter and annoyed about it" club.

I never really knew that I couldn't do the things they could do, and it certainly never occurred to me that I could get into any trouble following them around. Until the day we all rode our bikes (and various other vehicles, scooters, big wheels, I think someone took the pogo stick....) to Allen's without telling my parents. Some other parents may have known about it, but my mom didn't know about it and certainly didn't know I was going unaccompanied.

Turns out I was in BIIIIG trouble when I got home.

But pretending we were going to Allen's was not at all off limits.

While we were driving my younger brother Nate and I would lay down in the floor space of the "way back" in the station wagon and pull the cover down over us and use our spookiest voices to scare my mom. "Aaaaaamy and Naaaaathan are MIIIIIISSSSSSSSING" and my mom ever The Saint for playing along would "panic" and ask "The Ghost in the Back Seat" where we were. We'd answer "Amy and Nathan are gooooone to Allen's." And she'd proceed to remind us that if we didn't get our buns back in the car to get ready for church we were gonna be in big trouble.

So we did. We magically reappeared in the backseat having "found" something awesome that only could have come from Allen's.

Tommy and Josh have been playing a lot of hide and seek lately, and every chance he gets Tommy tells me "close your EYES mom!" "now COUNT mom!" so I count to 10 and he runs to the nearest closet, and giggles uncontrollably, while I narrate my search. "Is Tommy under the desk? noooooo..... [giggle giggle giggle]  is Tommy behind the chair? nooooo.... [snort snort laugh] is Tommy standing in the middle of the room? noooooo [don't forget about me mom!] is Tommy in the closet? HEY!!!! THERE YOU ARE!" Then it's my turn and he tells me where to hide while he counts. Best hide & seek ever.

At least until his ghost starts telling me "Tommy & John are gone to Allen's".