Skeleton From the Closet

Not in MY closet mind you. But there are three guys, who shall remain nameless, who have this to live down. Heck, they probably have forgotten (read “suppressed”) the memory completely. My sister and I, however, have absolutely NOT forgotten.

The story begins long before the actual event, and will take a bit of set up, so please indulge me.

Like many boys in the 12 year-old age range, I used to read comic books. I wasn’t an avid collector, I mostly read MAD Magazine and an occasional superhero of some sort. As everyone knows, the ads in the back were always fascinating to me; the X-ray glasses, the BB machine gun and various other worthless junk. I knew that the X-ray glasses COULDN’T work, but I always wanted the BB machine gun. One day, I spied an offer for a five-foot tall jointed skeleton that glows in the dark. WOW!, I had to have it. So I sent in the money, five dollars or so, and waited.

When the package arrived, I made a mental note that the package was very thin, especially one that was purported to contain a whole five foot tall skeleton. My first notion was that perhaps it may require assembly, and since there were so many bones in a skeleton, the dark thought crossed my mind that I would have to put it together.

I tore open the box and stared at what I thought would be the anatomical framework of a glow-in-the-dark person. What I stared at was a cheap cardboard printed skeleton smiling up at me with his (her?) jointed-by-brads limbs folded neatly up under his head. I took it out with disgust, I paid five dollars plus shipping and handling for THIS? Trudging to my room, I decided to test the only other redeeming value that this black and white printed cheat scheme would have; the power to glow in the dark.

On entering my room, I went straight to my desk lamp. I held the bundle of faux bones aloft to save the precious light from the 60 watt bulb. After a time, I took it into the closet to test the “glow factor”. The second I closed the door, I know that I’d been snookered.

My sister and I painted the entire skeleton with Lightning Bug Glo Juice to at least salvage some of my money.

That said, I will proceed with the original ignoble story.

The three brothers were over at our house with their parents. It was a usual Saturday evening, and the adults were having their fun. For some reason, it seems that we were all bored, looking for something to do. My sister remembered the cheap, home glow skeleton, and we proceeded to “glow him up”. To test the amount of light he had absorbed, I shut the light off. I don’t know what inspired my sister to do what she did next, but it was the making of one of the funniest 20 minutes I had experienced up till then in my life, and ranks up there with the top five of all time.

While the light was off, she swooped the bare bones at the brothers, who were skittish anyway. With that move, they scattered to other side of my bed. In the dark. Their shrieks of fear and laughter were hilarious. My sibling was just getting started with her campaign of fright on the boys. She followed their pleas, laughs and screams to further chase and terrorize them. Then she got the idea to grab its wrist and REACH for the poor boys. I stayed out of their way as they flung their bodies in their attempts to escape the flying bones. Of course, the pilot of the bones was keen on their plan to flee. She headed them off at the pass every time. Had she been a real ghoul, they would have been done for.

When the dive-bombing skeleton relented and the lights came on, we found the brothers cowering in various parts of the room, trembling with adrenaline and subsiding laughter. The youngest had a wet spot on his pants that extended from the zipper to his knees, the middle boy had a dual damp stripe that went to the middle of his thighs. The oldest, who was my age, did not escape the embarrassment; he had a single silver dollar sized spot on his pants.

As the family left, our glee was renewed as the boys tried to cover their shame.