It was my 10th birthday when my yearning for walkie-talkies was finally realized, of course only after my parents became tired of me putting me in peril to prove their necessity to my safety. Right after I got them, I was practicing the appropriate talkie language and flipping through the channels when I heard a familiar voice.
“Yes, Lisa, this is Penelope, and Andrew has a poison ivy rash on his upper thigh so he won’t be in school today.”
Andrew was my 9-year-old neighbor boy, and after seeing the Oprah episode on how to tell if your child is a serial killer, I was convinced he was the next Ted Bundy, except dumb and not attractive. I thought maybe he would just grow up to be an Insane Clown Posse fan. Either way, he was ice-cream-man creepy and I knew why he had that rash. The other day, I had seen him chasing baby rabbits through the weeds trying to squish them with his foot wearing only his underwear.
“Ha, dumbass,” I said aloud without realizing my finger was on the talk button. Woops.
“Lisa!” was all I heard before I clicked the walkie-talkie off to avoid more offense.
This was radical! I could listen to my neighbors’ phone conversations, or anybody’s within a 15-mile range, to be exact. Screw their intended purpose; the real sleuthing could finally begin.
It became a sick addiction, like Internet porn. I wouldn’t leave my room all day, I wouldn’t come down for dinner, I wouldn’t return friends’ calls. During recess, I would go to the back of the playground where all the overly sexual fifth graders went to make out so I could listen, unbothered by all my peers’ petty shenanigans.
Sure, this was more of a waste of time than daytime television, but it was the soap-opera effect, and I was hooked.
Then one day this sick habit came to a possibly destructive climax. I was flipping through channels like usual, and I stumbled upon a tense conversation between a man and woman. He was complaining that she did not have dinner on the table by the time he got home. This inflamed the young feminist in me, so out of spite and in an offensive imitation of her Asian accent I replied before she could.
“Me ave too mouch seex to make deener, maybe if you ave me on table wen you get ome we both bee appy.”
Immediately, I realized I might have gone too far with that one, so I chucked that soul-stealing box across the room and went to bed. My mind was the Lifetime Channel that night, filled with images of women getting beaten with rods, sticks, 2x4s and bricks. What had I done? I would never forgive myself if that man laid a hand on that precious Asian woman because of my injection.
The next day, I was out pursuing my neighbor’s garbage looking for eBay-actionable items. I had half of my gigantic 10-year-old body hoisted over the edge of a trashcan when a shriek caused me to tumble all the way in. I wiped the mayo off my forehead and popped back up over the side like a curious ground hog. From the open kitchen window of the house down the street came the moans of an Asian woman, followed by the deep groans of a man.
I couldn’t believe it! Not even Jesus could produce these results! Sure, he made the blind see, but I got people laid. However, looking back I cannot be so sure it was the couple I had interrupted the prior night, especially taking into account the recent boom of Asians in the community. But, I do like to remember it as the day I saved a marriage.