Bad customer service--www.beer-wine.com

[WRATHWILDE]

I use that look now on my nieces and nephews. They crack me up when I hear them whispering "He knows" LOL

Ah yes, I know that look well, which is why you never betray yourself. I realized early on that what they think they know, or even just strongly suspect, is irrelevant. It all comes down to what they can prove, or more often than not... what they can get you to admit to after they've supposedly discovered your guilt. More often than not it's a bluff on their part to get you to crack... banking on your hopes of a lighter sentence/forgiveness if you confess your guilt and tearfully express how truly sorry you are. The flip side is that they will come at you full of pride and esteem about how clever the whole thing was and let your ego trap you when bask in their admiration. Either way they relied on you to supply the information to confirm your guilt, and I wouldn't be baited.

Wrathwilde

 

[Oskaar]

...Either way they relied on you to supply the information to confirm your guilt, and I wouldn't be baited.

Wrathwilde

LOL, that only works if you're the only one involved, and if anyone else who's questioned has the same force of will as you do. There was a whole pack of us runnning around. Invariably someone would squeal or slip up and the deal was done.

If you're carrying off something alone with no partners and no witnesses, then that's one thing, but when you have other "associates" who can be sweated all bets are off. I had so many cousins and family members around that it just wasn't possible to carry off much without other family/friends being involved. That was part of our parents' fiendish plan too. There's always a squealer in every crowd. We learned to compensate for that after a while with diversionary tactics and mis-information, but that only goes so far.

Cheers,

Oskaar

 

[WRATHWILDE]

LOL, that only works if you're the only one involved

Better still is doing things in such a way that they never know they've ever been done. Which was originally my whole point, you carry things out in such a manner that you and your friends cannot possibly be caught in the act. All your behaviors and patterns at home or at your friends homes are proper and respectful.
As a teen I'd never do anything in front of my friends parents that I wouldn't do in front of my own... even if their parents allowed it, there was never the slightest possibility that I'd get a negative comment from any house I visited. Even when my family went in for family counseling, the Psychiatrist, after initial separate interviews of each family member, told my parents I was the most well adjusted kid they had EVER seen and that I didn't need to come back. The rest of the Family went twice a month for about a year.
Not putting yourself or your friends in a position to be caught was the main thing, in my eyes it was priority #1. When there are no witnesses, only coconspirators, and none of the activity took place at any of our homes, there is nothing for any of them to suspect. The fact that we were constantly out riding our bicycles all over San Diego made it easy to stay out of our parents supervision.
There were numerous places and dirt tracks we frequently rode including around the mission bay park area, and we often cycled through them, if we were out doing something and our parents couldn't find us, saying that we were just biking around usually worked. If they asked any of us where... we could name them off and since when we did ride it was usually in an order of preference, if they asked any of us they would get the same pattern of places we'd been, in the order we'd been there, leaving out where and what we were doing in between and no definite times we'd been at any one place. We always made sure we were back when we said we would be, or at least very close to it. Don't push it and don't give them any reason to try and reign you in. >

Wrathwilde

 

[Muirghein Tarot]

My civil war skirmish team and the other teams think I'm a weird hippie chick who dresses funny, my SCA and Ren Faire friends think its odd that I can stand to hang out with the *very* 'traditional' civil war skirmishing group (mostly, there are some who are not, but most are fairly big on religion, kids, guns, and down on alternative lifestyles and 'weird' stuff (as they define it, not me) - at least in the group I hang with). My work friends think *both* groups are weird, and my family friends just think *I'm* weird. My daughters' parents *know* I'm weird, and her friends think I'm some strange hippie throwback, but usually dub me 'cool' (that will end soon, now that they're all teenagers, I'm sure).

Vicky. With that many people in agreement it might be time to face the facts. Your weird. But we love you because your weird.......,and because of those god like powers! ;D

Runs...ducks....hides under carboys for fear of smiting.

;D ;D ;D
Tarot.

PS welcome to the club. I've been a card carrying member of weird in America for most of my life.

 

[Oskaar]

...Not putting yourself or your friends in a position to be caught was the main thing, in my eyes it was priority #1...

Wrathwilde

Where I was brought up, that just wasn't going to happen. Too many friends and relatives all over the town and in the surrounding communities. Also,the family businesses meant a lot of contact with other people who would see us wherever we were and knew who we were with so there was a build in limiting factor. Plus, as soon as they saw us someone would call one of the moms at home and let her know where we were and what we were doing. That was then phoned to the other moms as well. We had places to be at time certain during the day like most kids in our area, and one of the mothers was always around to check up on us. This is pretty standard practice in many Eastern European ethnic communities which is probably the difference between your childhood hijinks and mine.

What you and your friends did was nothing unusual for us either. We just had a greater number of more observant parents who knew that no matter how good a kid acts, their precocious nature can motivate them to do things they shouldn't be doing. They NEVER just took our word on it, and they used all of their resources to keep an eye on us. As mentioned there were times that we were able to get away with things. But most of the time not. No matter how well you plan something out and execute it, there are still factors that you cannot control.

Also, size of the group matters. We were running around with at least 12-15 kids, sometimes more all the time. Not because we had to, or needed safety in numbers, but because we had a great time together and wanted to hang out. So size was a serious mitigating factor in stealthy activities as well. Sometimes it was plus, sometimes it wasn't. Bottom line, organized parents with an agenda vs organized kids with an agenda wasn't much of a contest. Especially considering that there weren't any single, overworked, mothers in our crowd. They were just about all stay at home moms who's job it was to watch us like a hawk and boy did they ever.

Cheers,

Oskaar

 

[WRATHWILDE]

Usually it was 3 to 5 of us, and it was a pretty rough area of San Diego at the time, at lot of Motorcycle Gangs and Drug dealing going on in Ocean Beach when I was there. So a lot could go on relatively unnoticed. The Hells Angles always treated us kids very well.

Wrathwilde

 

[Oskaar]

You were lucky!

We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down at the mill, fourteen hours a day, week in, week out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home, our dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt.

Cheers,

Oskaar

 

[Johnnybladers]

At least you didn't have to walk 10 miles to school uphill both ways through snow as deep as the telephone poles in the middle of a July heat wave. Wait a minute, that's one of my dad's stories.
Jon

 

[DeltOgre]

I once had to kill a polar bear with my Trapper Keeper. It had The A-Team on it.