Scratching Backs Behind Backs

You scratch my back, I scratch yours; a common practice that is, or at least should be used by good friends. Such is the case with one of my best friends, and neighbor, whom I will refer to as J. We have plenty of times where we help each other out, but the most notable of these times were our grand cover-ups in an attempt to evade our parents and their discovery of our mischief. I was the one who began the cycle of back and forth conspiracy.

It was the summer of 2017, and J, and I were up to our usual antics; walking through the woods, all the while talking about a whole assortment of things. One of these topics of conversation just so happened to be about medieval weapons. J, being an owner of a few blades, introduced me to the websites that he has bought from and suggested that we both buy more from it. This, to me, was insane because I had never bought anything outside of Amazon, and I sure as hell had never bought a weapon before either. The biggest question of all, however, was what would my parents do to me if they found out I had bought something like that?

To combat this, J and I set up an elaborate plan to get away with our little deed. Step 1 was to get the money, that was the first threshold, because if that flopped, then the whole plan was a bust. We had the money, but all it was in was cash, meaning we had no way to digitally shop. J called his dad, who was getting out of work around that time, asking if he could get us Visa cards. Luckily for us, J’s dad isn’t as suspicious as my parents, so he agreed, such as long as we paid him back. It had only seemed like five minutes had gone by when J’s dad rolled up the driveway and handed us the cards. We promptly ran inside, sat in J’s living room and immediately began the setup process, which seemed to take forever.

We got to shopping, and I settled on a life sized replica sword from Braveheart, which I still own to this day and I am not ashamed of it. Now you might be thinking, “Well, how did you get the sword without your parents finding out?” It’s simple-ish, J and I had to set up a brand new email and information that was connected to nothing but those cards, and we used that to process the payment. To avoid any first-handed confiscation from my parents, I had it shipped to J’s house, so that it would be in my hands before my folks’. To make a long story short, the mission was a success, my parents still don’t know how I acquired the sword in the first place, and I continue to use the same trick as you read this.

Fast forward a year, the summer of 2018, it was an election year for the mayor of Lewiston, so political signs were a-plenty. This sparked the bored minds of J and I, and as we were sitting in his pontoon boat one night, we conceived the plan to mess with the signs by drawing on them with sharpies. J’s stepmother had taken away his privilege to leave the property due to something he had done early in the day, but in the moment, she wasn’t home. This was our green light, so we attempted to make it quick, an in and out job.

We took off on foot in the cover of the night down the road to a busy daytime intersection where many signs were rooted. We were cautious about the cars passing us, but we weren’t too worried about J’s stepmother being back wicked early on the account that she had just left before we departed from the house. We made it to the intersection, quickly scribbled run-of-the-mill childish things like mustaches and such, had our laughs, and started back home. We were *this* close to the peak of the hill where our houses were when headlights came beaming up behind us. We quickly identified it as J’ stepmother’s car, and she was coming in hot.

J dove for the bush filled ditch on the side of the road for cover just as his stepmother rolled to a stop right next to me. Her window rolled down, and she was staring at me with one of the most confused looks I had ever seen. She suspiciously asked me what I was doing walking on the side of the road in the middle of the night, and I simply answered that I enjoyed looking at the stars. She proceeded to ask me if I knew where J was all with an increased suspicious look to her face and tone to her voice. She had then explained that J’s sister had called her ratting him out on the account that he was nowhere in the house. I peeked down at the ditch where J was, and all I saw were his eyes staring at me through the shrubbery, silently pleading with me to not give up his position. I looked back at his stepmother and told her that I hadn’t heard from him since earlier in the day. She thanked me, and drove off, and J and I sighed in relief.

We both hurried back up to our houses along the road, and just before we passed the fronts, he took an alternate route through the woods. Beforehand he had explained to me that he was going to use it as an excuse that he was simply on a walk to check out his game camera. As far as I know, both of our alibis worked, and J was never caught off his property. To this day, J and I still have each other’s backs when it comes to hiding our mischievous plots from our parents, and now as our siblings are older, they’re joining the fun. Now that our circle is bigger, there are only more helping hands we can give each other, after all, what are friends for?

Photo by: Hunter Spencer