It had been a few months since Ed had given me a whipping with his belt for non doing my share of chores around the house. I'm not too stupid so I had done a pretty good job to avoid his reapplying that belt. Boy, hard that hurt. I guess I sort of forgot after a few months because I was supposed to clean up the garage and put some stuff away. I hadn't done it but didn't feel it was a big rush. Saturday morning, Ed went out to the garage and came in the house with an angry look on his face. He told me to get out to the garage with him.
"Why isn't this stuff put away, Matthew?"
"Uhhhh... I was going to to it pretty soon, Ed."
He shook his head. "I thought you had learned a lesson about dong your chores. I think we better get in the house and get the belt out. Maybe a whipping on your shorts will help you remember in the future."
I tried talking him out of it. "Please, Ed, anything but the belt. Give me a break."
Ed smiled a bit which I took for a hopeful sign then I was stunned to hear his clever response to my plea. "Okay, you won't get the belt but I guess we have to come up with some other punishment." With that, he stirred around in the wood that was on the floor that I was supposed to have put away and came up with a piece of walnut hardwood that was about 4 inches wide and 2 and a half feet long. Without saying a word, he switched on his band saw and began sawing the board. I couldn't figure out what he was doing at first but after a few minutes, it became clear. He was making a paddle. Still silent, he used his sanding machines and smoothed it out. After about 15 minutes, he had a perfect fraternity shaped paddle.
"Okay, Matt, if you had put this wood away, you wouldn't be getting spanked with it now, but..." He popped the paddle against his leg and gestured for me to come closer.
"Come on, Ed," I said backing away, "aren't you getting carried away with the fatherly role? We're supposed to be friends."
He looked a little angry. "We are friends when you act like an adult, but when you act like a child, I will be the dad, and you had better learn that quick. You had also better learn to stop arguing about this because I am going to add 5 swats for every argument. Want to add 10?"
I shook my head.
"Come over here and bend over, Matthew." I guess he was not going to make me take my pants down so I decided to get away with as little as possible. I walked over and bent over, grabbing my knees. Ed came behind me and before I could say anything else. CRACK!! Wow. The paddle stung pretty bad. CRACK!! CRACK CRACK CRACK "don't get up, Matt" Ed said. CRACK. "Okay, thats your five for arguing. Now this is for not doing your job of cleaning up the garage."
CRACK CRACK !! I couldnt believe it hurt this much CRACK "Oww Eddie, I'll clean up the garage. Give me a break" CRACK "I know you will," Ed said, "and this will help you remember. CRACK CRACK "Owww, Ed, come on, let me up, please stop" CRACK CRACK CRACK "Don't get up", Ed said or you get another five" CRACK CRACK "Please.... please " CRACK!!!!!
Ed stopped. "Okay, Matthew, get up and look at me." I was happy to get up, and rubbed my aching butt. Gee, I couldn't belive how hard Eddie had hit me but rubbing seemed to help. Ed looked at me with a pretty fatherly look, holding the paddle so I could see it.
"Listen, Matt my boy, from now on, if you don't do any job, no matter how small, when you are told to. You get 12 swats on your jeans. Do you understand?
I nodded.
"And, don't think the belt has been retired. If you do something else childish or disobey me in any other way, you get my belt on your undershorts and you will wish you were just getting 12 with the paddle. Do you understand that?"
I nodded again, thinking, gee, what I had gotten myself into.
Ed then got a nail and pounded it over his workbench. He drilled a hole in the handle of the paddle and hung it there. He walked by me and gave me a hard pat on the butt, saying "Well, you'd better get started, I'll be back in 2 hours and you better hope its all done."
It was done real quick but it wasn't too long before I got both the paddle and the belt again.