Stirred Up By Crickets

In the quiet hours between chaos and slumber, I lay and listen to the sounds of night. The breeze stroking the leaves on the trees to sleep and crickets singing their night-loving hymns. Summer nights are entrancing to anyone willing to fall prey to their spell-casting. Those crickets serenading me outside my window bring a rush of memories. I close my eyes as my mind staggers in attempt to keep up with the flashes and pictures running through my head. Campfires. Arriving home past curfew from a date. Listening to waves crash onto a dark shore. But one picture repeatedly pushes it's way to the back of my eyelids again and again, rudely forcing it's presence upon me.

The Toilet Paper Wars.

This was not the shadowy memory that I had hoped to linger upon, but I turned myself over to it, surrendering my hopes of a romantic recollection....

......Rural Battle Ground, Washington provided little in the way of entertainment in my day. My sister and friends and I would do anything during summer months to keep ourselves occupied with whatever didn't turn us into Country Bumpkins. That need to refrain from wearing giant belt buckles and listening to twangy music gave birth to the toilet paper wars. Dan and Scott, boys our age who lived about a half mile up the road, may have been the ones to spur the first attack, or it may have been us girls - I don't remember now, but there were many battles.

On one of those vengeful nights, Natalie and I had two friends over, Stephanie and Sandy. We erected a tent in the front yard of our house to deter any enemy activity. After all, who would dare toilet paper a house when the objects of your flirtatious offensive could be hiding just inside canvas walls that allowed in all kinds of suspicious noises? The four of us sat inside the tent and plotted our moves for the evening. The objective was simple; toilet paper Dan's house. But execution wouldn't be so easy because Dan and Scott might be expecting us. They could even be driving the road between our base and theirs, watching for our advance. We decided the best way to move would be to split in twos, walking up each side of the road towards our target, and dive into the ditch anytime a car approached from either direction to avoid being spotted by our foe. Gathering up our ammo, (copious ammounts of Charmin), we cautiously proceeded out of the tent and made our way towards the road.

The distance between our houses never seemed so far as when we were desperate to avoid detection. The chirping of our allies, the crickets, cheered us on with each adrenaline filled step and the moon was all that lit our way. It wasn't long at all before headlights appeared in the distance behind us and we all scrambled to lay as flat as possible in the deep trenches on either side of the pavement. Thoughts of roadkill and all varieties of insects and rodents plagued our minds as we waited for the car to pass. We could have been laying on anything in those ditches, but it was war. Sacrifice was necessity.

The car passed, and, hearts racing, we climbed from our hiding places and resumed the forge up the road. We had made it almost to the bottom of a little hill near the end of the road. Dan lived at the top of the incline - not far to go. Then, another car, rounding the corner right ahead of us! There was no time! We scattered in all directions. Headlights surrounded us in their revealing illumination. Each of us dove towards the ditch nearest us. Then a scream! The roar of a truck's engine passed us, we were safe. Then silence.

"Who screamed?" someone whispered in the welcomed darkness.

The reply came from Sandy. "This ditch is full of water! I'm soaking wet!"

Mouths covered to quiet our laughter, we watched Sandy crawl out of her ditch, dripping with filthy water. Poor Sandy had become the first casualty in The Toilet Paper Wars. She had selflessly helped us to avoid capture, and we were grateful.

At last, we made it to the enemy's camp. Cloaked in a hush, we unraveled the T.P. around bushes, lamp posts, fence railings and shrubs. We rolled it across the lawn in stripe and zig-zag patterns. Stealthily, we tossed the rolls into trees and the tissue cascaded back down to us like a glorious waterfall. We took just a moment to admire our work. The mission had been a success.

Back in the tent later that night, we excitedly munched on our rations of junk food and discussed when retaliation might be coming. No matter - we were the Masters, and we were ready to escalate the campaign to complete annihilation if necessary. With giddy enthusiasm, we settled into our sleeping bags to listen to those crickets pass the news of our victory to all the nocturnal world. And then we slept, confident that, for that night, we were impervious to raids from our worthy opponents.