The two bells clanged hard as the striker moved rapidly between them. The old wind up alarm clock was signaling me that it was time to get up. I stirred slowly and let them keep ringing loudly. That was the nice thing about the old wind up alarm clocks. Unlike the new electric ones eventually they run out of wind and shut up. It was 7:00 in the morning on a cold Saturday in the middle of winter. I was 10 years old at the time of this story.
It was snowing outside. I didn't know that at the moment, but just lifting my head slightly from the pillow told me it was cold. That meant the sky was sharing some more white stuff with us. It was probably 15 or 20 degrees farenheight outside. (approximately -9 Celsius for those of you who live outside the United States). I had gone to bed at 9:00 pm the previous night. I was well rested. I knew I had to get up. I knew that my mother would be mad at me if I didn't. The family was on a time table this morning. I didn't care, I was warm and I really wanted to stay that way.
I turned over on my side slightly and let the alarm clock run out while I resettled my head onto the pillow and closed my eyes. It was the kind of day perfect for staying in pajamas in a nice warm bed. A few minutes after the alarm clock ran out, the lights to my room flicked on and I knew what was happening. I closed my eyes tighter trying to fight against the light. We all know that if we ignore it that it will eventually go away right? Not very likely but there wasn't much I could do about it.
"Matt honey, your alarm went off. It's time to get up. We have to get going soon and you still need to get some breakfast, change and brush your teeth." My mother explained.
"I don't want to go. Cannot I just stay home? It's warm here and it's cold out there." I wasn't going to win this argument with a clever smart attitude. I made my case straight and to the point.
"No, Sarah is coming this week and you are not staying home by yourself. That is all there is to it." She pointed out.
I switched tactics and rolled over on my side again closing my eyes. My mother had other plans. Five seconds later, the covers I was all warm under were suddenly ripped right off of me. She grabbed them at the foot of the bed and pulled them down far enough that I was uncovered. Immediately the cold air hit me as the outer layer of my protection was removed. I knew right then and there I didn't want to get out of bed. I eased myself up into a sitting position bracing myself with one arm. I looked up at her.
"Really?" I asked sheepishly.
"Really." She replied. "Now go brush your teeth. Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes and I expect you at the table. We don't want to keep your aunt and grandmother waiting." She explained before departing the room.
Slowly and reluctantly I slipped my feet onto the floor and stood up. I was still somewhat warm. But I could feel the chill in the air. The pajamas were a big help, but that only went so far. I stood up and slowly worked my way out of the room and down the hallway to the nearest bathroom. The pajamas were new, less than a week old. My mother had to pry them from me the previous day because they needed to be washed. I had worn them to bed every night since we had got home from the store with them. I was glad to be back in them now. I rounded the corner and headed into the bathroom standing in front of the sink. I turned on the light and found my tooth brush. I took a moment and looked at myself in the mirror.
The pajamas were a one piece set made of a heavy warm fleece. They had a zipper that ran down the front from just under my chin down to my waist. The top half had long sleeves with ribbed cuffs at the ends of the arms. The bottom half ended in built in pajama feet with the little white skid resistant bottoms. The whole thing was blue in color except for the front of the chest. It was white with a star wars motif screen printed onto it. It even had a hood that was now hanging loosely behind my neck. We had seen them on a trip to the department store the previous weekend. I needed some new shoes and I saw them hanging on a rack as we passed. I thought they looked pretty cool and my mother asked me if I wanted to try them on. They fit pretty well and the next thing I knew we had purchased them. They were comfy, warm and really welcome this cold time of year.
I stood there brushing my teeth. I made the decision then and there that they were staying on through breakfast. After all, I was still comfortable and I wasn't willing to part with that yet. I also took a few minutes to use the bathroom before heading down to the kitchen. That was the one drawback to the jammies. I had to unzip them and remove the top half to use the toilet. I wore a t-shirt underneath to retain some body heat for that specific purpose, but otherwise they were wonderful.
The table was set neatly. My other siblings were already up and dressed for the day. I think my mother was a little annoyed when I showed up still in my pajamas. But she set a portion down in front of me as usual without much comment. That was part of having older children. They took their time to get moving the morning and there wasn't much you could do about it. Breakfast consisted of cold cereal, toast and juice. My mother didn't have time to cook and clean up a kitchen this morning.
"I still don't see why we have to go. We saw Grandma at Christmas a few weeks ago." I commented. As most of you know from reading my previous stories my mother visited my aunt most weekends. All of us ended up getting dragged along. At least until my sister was 13 when my mother started letting her stay home alone. When I was 8 she let me join her and settled on taking the two youngest children in our family with her. Still every once and a while I ended up getting dragged into it.
I ate and continued my protests. My grandmother was visiting my aunt as well and that meant we would be tagging along for a visit. She didn't come down from Pennsylvania very often. I ate breakfast rather quickly and continued to argue between bites of food. It got into a pretty heated debate between me and my mother. Both of us speaking our minds openly. I think all the noise confused my younger brother and sister about the situation.
"Well I'm not going and that is final!" I shouted at her. She was clearing her throat for a reply but I stormed out back to my room before she got the second word out.
I ran down the hallway back into my room and slammed the door behind me. "She couldn't make me go. I was too big for her to carry out to the car. I did it I finally stood up to her." I kept telling myself that I had won the fight that I knew deep down I had really lost. Any minute my mother would come pounding on that door and I would be forced to get dressed and get dragged along for a long boring day at my aunts. I just sat there on the edge of my bed in my pjs staring at the door waiting. I folded my legs and arms up crossing both as I sat on the bed.
A few minutes passed and nothing happened. It was probably only five minutes, but it seemed like an eternity watching the second hand slowly circle the face of the wind up alarm clock. Then it happened. I heard a gentle rapping at the door. It wasn't the loud angry protest of my mother that I had expected. Instead a quiet, relax and calm voice spoke through the door to me.
"Matt are you in there? Is it alright for me to come in." Sarah spoke softly from the far side of the door.
"Yeah go ahead." I replied. I had been expecting my mother. Having my sister arrive instead threw me off guard. She walked in slowly closing the door behind her.
"Mom is pretty upset. She really wants us to go to see Grandma today." Sarah explained the matter I already knew about.
"I know but I don't want to go. It's just boring." I explained back.
"I know. I told Mom that I would come talk to you and if you still didn't want to go I would stay home with you like you wanted. That way she wouldn't be late." Sarah interjected.
The response really caught me off guard. I had fully expected that I had lost the argument and I was going to be forced into going whether or not I wanted to. I uncrossed my arms and stood up slowly looking at my sister.
"Really, you mean we are staying here?" I asked excitedly. Sarah nodded and spoke back to me about a few other matters. The conversation shifted back and forth a little and I don't honestly remember everything we discussed. This was the 1980's and it was likely something related to a cartoon or something stupid like that.
Sarah crossed the room slowly and opened the bottom drawer on my dresser. She pulled it open and pulled a few of my shirts off to one side. I was starting to see what she had in mind. Or at least I thought I did.
"Do you want to be tied up today? We haven't played in a while. You could stay in your pajamas if you want to. They do look pretty comfortable on you." She explained as she drew a coil of rope out from where we hid it. It was one of the shorter pieces that my father had gotten us in the previous story.
"Sure." I replied with a quick nodded before crossing the room. Sarah was already uncoiling the piece of rope that was about 12 feet long. I turned around and presented my hands behind my back moving them together. Sarah took hold of them and began to wrap the rope around them. She wrapped them 6 or 7 times horizontally then took the rest of the rope and wrapped it between them vertically to cinch the tie off. Once she was done she gave it one final tug to make sure it was tight and then she knotted it off on top out of the reach of my hands.
I twisted my wrists behind my back. They were tied quite snuggly. After a minute or two of trying I quickly realized that freeing myself was going to be difficult. Before, wriggling out of a jump rope or bathrobe belt took some time. However, this new rope held very securely and made escaping quite difficult. Sarah was retrieving a second piece of rope from the dresser. I had expected she would get a second short coil to bind my legs with as well. I hoped she would wait until we reached the living room so that I could watch some television. However, she was dragging out the long piece that was probably 30 to 35 feet in length. She took her time and uncoiled it until it was neat. Then she tied one end of it off on my right arm.
I suddenly realized that she meant to bind my upper arms with it. I stood still and let her do the work. She wrapped it all the way around me at least half a dozen times. When she got down to the last 10 feet or so, she wrapped it underneath my arms similar to how she had cinched my wrists. This snugged up the ropes and held my arms tighter to my body. She did this twice on both sides then tied the loose end off in a knot in the front of the binding.
"Try to get out." Sarah instructed as she admired her handy work.
I began struggling and putting up a good effort. After two minutes of squirming the point became quite clear. I just shook my head and looked down. There was very little chance of me wriggling free on my own.
"Great, glad to hear I did a good job. Now, where does Mom keep your snowsuit?" She asked.
"Snowsuit?" I asked
"Yeah it's really cold outside and I think you are going to need something more than your pajamas for the trip down to Aunt Bonnie's." Sarah explained.
Suddenly it hit me. I put two and two together and it ended equaling four rather than the seventeen I had been trying to convince myself it was earlier. The door to my bedroom was closed. Sarah made her way across the room to my closet and opened it. The big black snowsuit with the yellow stripe down the sides was hanging on the door where I had last left it. I was old enough that I normally just wore a jacket to school this time of year. However, I had the snowsuit if I wanted to play outside in the snow for a longer period of time or if we went sledding. I hadn't warn it since our Christmas break going up to see my grandparent in Pennsylvania.
Sarah lifted it off the wall and started towards me slowly. I took two steps backwards from her slowly. My original plan had been to stay in my pajamas and avoid going at any cost. Now, I was trapped in my room with my sister. She was intent on making me go and my hands were tied quite tightly behind my back. My situation was not going in my favor. I ran towards the door. However, with my arms tied the way they were I couldn't reach the knob. Even if I stood up on tiptoe. I dropped back to a more comfortable flat footed stance and took a step back towards my sister.
"I guess I am going aren't I?" I asked looking at her.
"Yup." She replied.
This story is turning out to be much longer than I originally intended it to be. I think I am going to break it into a couple of parts so I can get this posted. I will be updating it later this week with a second part and maybe even a third if needed. As always thanks for reading. Comments are always appreciated.
Alex95
