Such a simple thing. Tipping back on a chair. I had been told not to do it for as long as I could remember, but I had a bad habit. And one day, I tipped back so far that it fell over with me in it. And broke the very top of the back of the antique wooden piece of furniture.
I raced to the garage and found some wood glue and repaired it as well as I could. I thought it looked pretty good. That night at dinner, no one said anything, and as several days passed uneventfully, I thought, "The boy pulled it off!"
About two weeks later, however, I came home from basketball with my friend Rob and found the piece I had glued on laying in front of my place at the table, with my dad's leather belt next to it. The implication was clear.
I tried to hurry Rob home, but he knew what was up and hung out. Dad came in from the back yard and nodded at us. "When'd you break the chair?" he asked me.
"Two weeks ago," I said. "How many days exactly," he asked. "15."
"Then 15 times 2 for breaking the chair and for lying about by not telling me and trying to fix it is 30."
Thirty swats! "Rob, you better go home now," I said.
"I want him to stay," Dad said.
Very unceremoniously, he pulled me by the t-shirt over to the broken chair. He sat down in it.
"Pull your pants down," he said.
"Dad!" I cried.
"OK then, I'll pull them down for you."
Which he did. Leaving me standing there naked from the waist down, because he pulled my shirt off, too.
Rob had seen my peter many times. So had Dad. But not since it had sprouted hair. I was mortified.
Soon I was over his knee, and thirty swats later I was crying. They had both seen everything as I squirmed: my peter, my balls, even my little butthole. And when I stood up and jumped around, rubbing my butt, they saw what Rob always called St. Peter's Dance after that.