I'm gonna whoop your socks off!

If I remember correctly, I was 8 years old. It was a Friday night. I had been acting up and for punishment my dad told me to shut up and go to bed. "I don't want to hear a peep out of you either," was his last words as he shut the door of my room.

I wasn't too happy about having to go to bed so early. It was only about 8:30 pm and my older sister, Pam, was still up. I remember lying in my bed fuming about how unfair it was. I started talking out loud to myself and eventually I started singing. I heard my dad yell from the living room. "Shut it up in there and go to sleep!" This just made matters worse for me and you would think that I would've shut up and tried not to make any noise, but nope, I continued making noise. All of a sudden the bedroom door flew open and there stood dad. "I told you to shut it up in here! If I hear one more sound out of you I'm gonna come in here and whoop your socks off!" I knew that he meant what he said but I looked down at my bare feet and just couldn't help from saying, "but dad, I don't have any socks on," all the while with a big grin on my face. Boy, was that a stupid move on my part. Like a copperhead striking, my dad sprang from the doorway, slipped his belt off, grabbed me by the arm, yanked me from the top bunk of the bed, and commenced to whooping me all over the room. Needless to say, I didn't utter another sound and quickly cried myself to sleep.

Moral of the story? Never talk back to your parents and always wear socks!