Terrible Three

            As a young child, my father was stationed in Hawaii. Instead of a “terrible two” toddler, I happened to be three and it affects my mother to this day wanting to know where we are, where we’re going, and what we’re doing. This skill, while it did produce some funny stories, took a strong toll on my mother’s nerves.

            We lived in a house built before WWII. This house had a butler’s pantry. One day, I climbed the shelves of the pantry and pulled the glass doors just right so that I could not be seen at all. I did not move, laugh, or make a single sound. My parents and all the neighbors spent hours searching for me. They could not find me. Before my father called the police, my mother walked through the pantry and stopped as she got a glimpse of pink shorts. My mom says when she opened those doors all I did was give her a toothy grin.

            The next house we lived in, we had just settled in when my parents had to go to a dinner. So they hired a babysitter. My father said he remembers that two hours into dinner, the restaurant manager comes into the room and taps him on the shoulder.

            “Sir, your babysitter called. She said she needs you to come home right now because she can’t find your daughter.” My parents came home in a rush to a distraught babysitter. The search began in everything with a door. My father found me when he sat on his bed and I giggled in my sleep. My father said my mother had a panic attack and she disagrees with him.

            We lived in a cul-de-sac. A little boy convinced my brother and me that he could take us to our favorite restaurant. My brother and I were all for it. We got our backpacks ready, put our shoes on, and left with him to go eat. He led us to the bus stop and we sat on the bench ready to go. There was only a soldier at the bus stop and he was minding his own business.

            When our parents recognized our absence, it quickly became a hunt. Soon, the cul-de-sac joined. The neighborhood followed. Next came the police. As my parents spotted us at the bus stop, the boy quickly disappeared. My brother and I looked at our parents and smiled saying, “We’re going to Zippy’s.”

            For as long as I can remember, anytime my siblings wanted to go anywhere my mother had a list of questions. Where exactly are you going? Who are you going with? When are you going to be back? I could not go anywhere without my mother until I was sixteen. I learned that a mother’s worry will never go away. My brother is twenty-one and she still asks him what he’s doing.