Day 49 Childhood Escapades

Day forty nine and today's portrait is painted on a thick paper board that I have glued tissue paper and an airmail letter from friends to my parents. This is postmarked Australia. One place in the world that I would love to go but have never been.

We traveled quite a lot when we lived in Africa because we would always go stateside every summer while living there. My parents were always taking us to a variety of destinations on the way there and on the way back. Over time they developed friendships with people that lived in some of those places. Today the story is about what happened one day when we went to visit friends in Italy. I think it was Rome. I don't know who it was that we were visiting but it was a second or third floor apartment. This was one of those times that we were all dressed up and visiting a family that had children. None of the required quiet and stillness was necessary for this visit. We were instructed to go play while my parents visited with the parents of our new friends. They spoke English well enough to tell us after a warming up period that we should play hide and seek. There were probably about five or six children scurrying around this unfamiliar place to find a place to hide. I didn't always like to play this and my sense of urgency to hide and need for bodily functions had me headed to the closest bathroom. I went inside and quickly turned the lock. The lock was not any ordinary lock, it was a dial that when turned slid a piece of metal from one side into a piece of bracketed metal. It was a tight fit. The entire mechanism was on the inside of the door. So i was able to see the metal move into the bracket and off I went to the use the facilities. I couldn't really tell who was still hiding or not .. so after washing my hands and having a look around an Italian home bathroom I decided to sneak out and see where everyone was. I went over to this interesting lock and yes .. I tried turning the dial the other way. My young hands and fingers just couldn't make that dial turn back not even with two little hands grasping it for dear life. I was beginning to feel just a bit worried that I might not be able to get out. I felt pretty silly and finally after trying for a several minutes I don't remember if I hollered out or if my parents came looking for me and discovered my plight. No matter, because I do recall my father trying to talk me through all the attempts that I tried to turn the dial again and again. This was embarrassing because no matter how many times I tried, I couldn't budge the heavy metal plate that was securing that door. So after much discussion on the other side by the adults. My father told me to get into the tub. I couldn't imagine why I should do such an odd thing. He told me to put my head down and told me that he was going to knock the door down. I was of course scared that I was going to be in big trouble. I had closed the shower curtain and laid in the tub while the wild knocking and busting down of the door commenced. It was pretty quick that the door was flung open and the pieces went flying about and everyone came over to the tub to see if I was ok. I felt horrible. It really wasn't something that you could scold me to badly over. I can't imagine they would tell me to "never lock the door when you go into a persons bathroom". "You should know better than to lock a door when you go to the bathroom." None of those scoldings would have fit. They just made heavy apologies to their friends and we left. It was scary and just one of many of my childhood escapades.

If you would like to own today's portrait which is day #49 and therefore $49. Please email me at iwilldream4ever@aol.com. Today I was up early and I am going to have some fun today. I will however most likely lock whatever restroom I enter. haha .. See you tomorrow.