Silly String Shenanigans

Every year, my old elementary school holds a carnival to raise money. I'm not really sure what they raise money for. New carpet mats? Lunches that don't involve the words "Mexican" and "pizza?" I don't know, but I go to the carnival nearly every year. One reason is because, despite being twenty-six, I still have a younger sibling attending the school. The main reason is because they always have a cake walk. 

And I fucking love cake walks. 

Aside from the cake, they have other cool attractions. One year, someone donated an old Lincoln Town Car and you could pay $2 to beat the hell out of it with a sledgehammer for thirty seconds. Best $26 I've ever spent. Another year, they had inflatable sumo wrestling. 

They also always have silly string. Always. It's a smart move on their part. Buy a few hundred cans of silly string on the cheap, mark 'em up 200% and reap in the profits. Everyone loves silly string. I bet if silly string had been around during the early 1900's, Archduke Ferdinand wouldn't have gotten shot and World War I would've been averted. Or, maybe he still would've been shot, but he would've gotten shot with silly string and he would've laughed it all off. Because everyone loves silly string.

But there are rules to silly string. The primary rule being you don't silly string someone you don't know. It's an asshole move. You can pants your friends and it's funny, right? But if you pants that stranger on the corner of Clark and Diversey, you're going to get your ass handed to you, brother. Same thing with silly string.

This one year, I saw this kid. He couldn't have been older than seven. Maybe six. And he was going around and silly stringing everyone behind their backs and he had this stupid shit-eating grin the whole time like he was sooooo proud of what he was doing. Whatever, kid. That's messed up. Real messed up. But I didn't say anything. 

I went to the cake walk with Kayla, my youngest sister, and we both won cakes. She picked chocolate and I picked chocolate because if you don't pick chocolate, you're a pinko communist. Or allergic to chocolate.

As we sat in front of the fourth grade hall eating the hell out of our delicious chocolate cakes, I heard Kayla shout "HEY!" I turned around and saw that kid laughing. He had just silly stringed Kayla's cake. Her chocolate cake. That she had won at the cake walk. 

"Don't do that," I told him.

He just stuck his tongue out at me, shot silly string in my general direction and then ran off. 

"Hold my cake, Kayla." I said as I handed her my chocolate cake. 

I went to the silly string stand and bought two cans. One for me and one for Kayla's cake. 

The kid was shuffling around the basketball court, lazily shooting silly string at anyone who passed by and laughing. He sat next to the big oak tree in between the court and the playground and shot some into the air.

I walked over to the tree and stood just out of his field of vision. Then I tapped his shoulder. The moment he turned around, I shot both cans of silly string. Into his face. Completely unloaded both of them. Then I grabbed his can and shot it at his chest. Once it was empty, I dropped it, held my hands up and walked away.

I told this story to Delma a while ago and she said I was an asshole. Maybe so, but who was the asshole first? He shot silly string into Kayla's cake. Her cake. "He's just a kid," Delma told me. Kids know what they're doing. When I was four, I would spit my vegetables into my napkin and then throw 'em into the trash can when my mom wasn't looking. Kids are smart.

I'm not a vindictive person, but if someone messes with my sisters, hold me back, momma, cus I go hog wild. Seriously, if he had sprayed MY cake, I probably would've let it go and just eaten some of Kayla's cake. But I don't like people messing with my little sisters.