Hide and Seek 1984

It was Christmas Eve, 1984, at my grandma’s house. Her townhouse was packed with what felt like 100 family members ranging in age from 2 to 75, some more beloved than others. Great Aunt Mandy was likely the least beloved by the cousins. While arguably a decent person, she was, well, crabby. She didn’t like kids and had zero tolerance for our shenanigans. Some cousins enjoyed winding her up like a top and watching her spin, shouting at kids in an angry, dizzying, and unpredictable rant. Others, like me, were terrified of her and preferred to stay under the radar. Most of the time, I was successful, if not for my own behavior, then for that of one of our eldest, and most egregious cousins, John.

John was a huge kid. I mean that both literally and figuratively. He stood well over 6’ 2” and weighed close to 300 pounds and to this day, has never really grown up. As a football lineman and wrestler for his high school, the mind creates an athletic teen in the prime of his life, but instead, he more closely resembled a giant teddy bear, or rather the swearing, pot-smoking teddy bear from the movie, TED. All of the cousins adored John, especially me. He could make any boring occasion fun, including Great Grandma’s funeral, where he initiated a game of hide and seek in the funeral parlor. I’ve never been so scared yet so eager to be found in all my life. But I digress.

This year’s hide-and-seek game was more difficult to pull off. It was cold and rainy outside and there were too many people in the house to find a proper counting spot, so, we had to improvise. The basement, where we were relegated, was comprised of two areas. The room on the left had a few couches, a TV with 2 channels, and a fully stocked bar, which would be of much interest as we got older. The room to the right contained a washer, dryer, extra refrigerator, and a small pantry filled with canned goods and 12-packs of soda that were smartly purchased while on sale. The room was pitch black other than one dimly lit bulb on a pull string in the middle of the room. To turn the light on (which, no one dared do), you must wander into the blackness, hands above head, shuffling feet like a zombie under arrest, until a hand hit the cord, or, God forbid, the cord hit your head and sent you spiraling into a fit of spider-filled terror. Needless to say, we stayed to the left, and I even went so far as to run a little faster when passing the “other” room.

For today’s festivities the “it” would lie face down at the top of the carpeted basement stairs and count to 20 - loudly - with a promise not to peek. To her abomination, “it” was my sister, Leah. As the loud counting began, adrenaline flooded my body, and the freeze part of fight, flight or freeze, took the reins.

“One, two…”

I was horrible at hiding. So bad that Leah would occasionally take pity on me and hide me somewhere.

“Ten… Eleven…”

Anxiety turned to sheer panic as I realized my sister was the one counting, so who would help me?

As my fear came to a crescendo, John saw the panic, grabbed my arm and pushed me into the room on the right. He flung back the bi-fold door and unceremoniously stuffed me into the pantry. He looked at me with serious eyes and demanded, “just be quiet!” He then slammed the door shut and disappeared back into the darkness. To where? I had no idea. I pushed a stack of soda cans out from the wall and stood behind them. The ideal hiding spot for a turtle, perhaps, but alas, my head stuck out the top, even when I squished myself as flat as the 2’ deep closet would allow.

“Sixteen… Seventeen…”

Determined not to be found first (for once), I took another case of soda and hoisted it to the top of the pile, making a taller wall to hide behind. My first attempt failed and the Diet Coke 12-pack loudly crashed to the ground. I quickly re-stacked the soda and willed myself silent through tears of anxiety.

“Twenty! Ready or not, here I come!”

My sister had the fortitude of a sloth on benzos. After one enthusiastic glimpse into each room, she began loudly declaring that everyone was cheating and sat back down on the stairs to pout. This moral infraction caught the ear of Mandy, who came to investigate and put an end to any sort of fun-having that might be underfoot. She looking accusingly at Leah.

“We’re were playing a game but I think they are tricking me,” Leah told her in a voice loud enough we could all hear. My younger cousin giggled from across the darkness, silenced by a surround sound wall of “shush!”

Mandy, incensed at the idea that anyone might be having fun under her roof, went to investigate for herself. After a quick glance to the left, she stepped into the laundry room and froze. She sensed something. Was it 11 grandchildren recklessly hiding in and on appliances? We may never know.

In a move no one saw coming, she fully walked into the dark room. The creak of an old appliance cut through the silence like a gunshot. The refrigerator groaned as if under some terrible stress. As she opened the door, the light spilled out into the room and through the slats in the pantry door I could see my young cousin across the room, standing as still as a bug caught in a glue trap. Fear enveloped him.

“This thing is getting old” Mandy mumbled under her breath. The tension in the room was palpable. My cousin John sat up straight and tall atop the fridge trying to make himself somehow less of a burden to the poor box. He readied himself to scare the life out of her if he thought he was caught, as he was not about to go out like that. But she seemed oblivious to all but the creaky hinge.

Not finding what she searched for in the fridge, it closed and the clatter of a bi-fold door opening could be heard. I held my breath behind the stack of soda, which perfectly covered me until…

“What? Well I know we have more. Why would someone put it there?” she continued to talk herself through the crisis.

…until I realized Mandy was searching for the Diet Coke.

“Don’t breathe, don’t laugh, don’t cry. This can’t take long” I tried to convince myself. The entire pantry was, maybe, 10 square feet. Everything was accessible from the doorway.

My life flashed before my eyes as the Diet Coke disappeared, revealing a terrified 8 year old who hadn’t breathed in the last 7 minutes, it seemed. She saw nothing.

She strode toward the door to leave and then turned back to the blackness one last time as if she’d heard her name called, and then abruptly turned and left. A collective sigh was let out as the door clicked shut but to our horror it immediately flung open again as Mandy re-entered the room as if finally realizing what was going on. She walked with purpose toward the light and clicked it on. Just as she turned, John’s legs sprang out from his hiding place on top of the refrigerator and Mandy shrieked. For a moment it looked as if that old appliance were coming to life to exact revenge for her unkind assessment of its abilities. As Mandy continued screaming, every single hiding child echoed with an in-kind scream, which further traumatized the poor woman. As she began verbally assassinating John, the rest of us fell out of our hiding places, happy to be rid of the tension and even happier to let John take the fall for us. She left the room and stormed up the stairs to tell our parents what bratty kids we all were.

We laughed hysterically and took roll call to figure out who was missing. Someone was definitely missing. My 12-year-old cousin, Tina, continued laughing beyond what seemed appropriate. When pressed her to explain herself, she simply turned to the dryer, turned it on, then opened the door and out fell her youngest sister, Tara, in a crying ball of lint and indignity. As the purple goose egg formed on her forehead before our eyes, the room exploded in tears and slobber of laughter.

From upstairs we heard another wail as the first Diet Coke exploded from the can. Nothing could ever top this day!