When I was about seven, I shared a room with two younger sisters, ages five and four, and we over-used the “I need a glass of water” exscuse frequently, but one time we went too far!
One night we were particularly restless, (probably because Dad and Mom were watching a “grownup” movie and we desperately wanted to see it) and used that excuse a good five times within fifteen or twenty minutes, all three of us. The kitchen sink was in just the right spot where if you turned around with your back to it and took a step to your right, you could see the T.V. from where you were standing, and slowly drink your full-to-the-brim glass of water. It didn’t always work out like that, though. To go from our bedroom to the kitchen you had to walk past the living room, and from Dad and Moms view on the couch, you would see a thin, scraggly haired girl dressed in a flannel nightgown walk as quietly and as quickly as she could past that “danger zone” and into the kitchen. Only if we heard the question “what are you doing up?” would you announce your intentions of “getting a glass of water”. They would always pause the movie of course. Then you only ran some water into the bottom of your glass, drank a sip, and then poured the rest down the sink before scampering back to bed with a cheerful, innocent grin and a quick “goodnight!”. Eventually it became the “I need to use the bathroom” one; because as everyone knows, the more water you drink, the more frequent those trips become. After we had used up the bathroom one quite enough, we held a whispered conference from our separate beds and decided that we would go back to using the water one, as those made us use the one for the bathroom. Brilliant for a seven, five, and four year old! Dad and Mom must have had their own conference in the living room, because just as I was about to hop out of bed Dad came into the room. All you could see was his silhouette, but we knew that we were in trouble. Instead of getting that scary growl of “girls, that’s enough, stay in bed!” he walked to the middle of our bedroom, bent down, and put something on the floor. We could tell he was grinning when he went back to the doorway, then he announced, “hey, girls. I just put a mouse trap on the floor, you’d better not get out of bed or it’ll getchya!” Then he walked out. I was sitting up in bed by now, and there was total silence in the room. Then all at once all three of us said “nuh-uh!” We didn’t know if we should believe him or not, but it was something our Dad just might do.
Finally, one of us came up with the idea of throwing our stuffed animals on our bed towards the trap to make it “go off”. We used up all our ammo, and even when we didn’t hear a snap and knew we must have hit it by then, we stayed in bed. Eventually, of course, we did fall asleep. But that mousetrap was the first thing we looked for in the morning before we got out of bed! I still don’t know if he actually did that, but as I said before, it’s something our Dad just might have done.