The Plan

I grew up in a large family as the middle child. Although I was the middle child I was always lumped in with my younger siblings as one of what my parents called, "the little guys." I remember how unfair this felt even at a very young age. I was about five years old when "The Plan" was first hatched.

My parents went out for the night and left all the kids at home with a babysitter. The babysitter seemed perfectly normal despite having agreed to watch seven unruly children for a whole night. We were all watching television and it was almost bedtime. Or rather, it was almost bedtime for the "little guys". The baby sitter started rounding up my two younger brothers and me. I must not have been very happy about the situation because the babysitter wanted to make a deal. My five year old mind found her deal extremely appealing. The gist of this "Plan" was that I would pretend to go to bed with my brothers as normal, but as soon as they were asleep I would sneak out of bed. Then I could come back and watch television with the "big guys" (my sister was included in this) and the babysitter. Well it worked out marvelously for me and the babysitter. I marched to my room dutifully with the other "little guys", although inside I knew that I was no longer one of them. I fought off the thick gooey sleep that was trying to pin me down and slowly, oh so slowly, slipped out of the queen sized bed I shared with my two brothers. Every squeak sounded like a gunshot as I tried to get out without waking them. I finally succeeded and went back to the living room. I remember how bright the lights were when I came back out. I had a great feeling of freedom right alongside the persistent, hypnotic call of sleep.I sat on the floor in her lap and despite a valiant struggle I fell back to sleep. The babysitter had won and got me to sleep with very little fuss. Little did she know that she had planted a seed in me that would grow and mutate.

It was a couple of years later that The Plan would rise again. The situations were very similar to before. The "little guys" had to go to bed early, even on the weekends. This left the big kids awake to watch scary movies and drink all of the soda pop and eat the treats. I felt outraged by the unfairness of the situation. It was in this outrage that I remembered The Plan. Only this time I felt that I needed to bring the freedom of The Plan to others. I explained The Plan to my two younger brothers and from then on it was a standing order. Despite this fact we would always confirm with each other that The Plan was on:"Are we doing The Plan tonight?""Yeah, The Plan tonight."In most cases we would be unable to stay awake and The Plan would be lost to sleep and dream. With The Plan there was strength in numbers. If one of us managed to stay awake we made a solemn promise to the others to wake them up too. There were times, glorious times, when The Plan was executed to perfection. I remember feasting on chips and Coca-Cola while watching late night sci-fi and horror movies.Now that I'm older I find it interesting that I still do The Plan. I don't call it that any more but the pattern is the same. I wait until everyone else is asleep and then treat myself to whatever goodies are in the house. I watch all of the movies and television that my kids can't (or my wife won't) watch. It still has the sweet taste of a secret shared among a precious few.

To this day when I get together with my brother we always end up talking about The Plan. We remember it fondly. We also remember our co-conspirator, our brother, who died too young. Now I am thinking that maybe, somewhere or somewhen, he is doing his own cosmic version of The Plan. I hope he remembers to wake up his brother so that we can enjoy the goodies together.