The Game of Zorro

The game of Zorro. It was
a game we played when
my kids were young. Well,
maybe I should rephrase that.

See it was a game I played on
my kids when they were real
young. One of my kids I swore
to secrecy, because he caught
me in the act. So I told him if
he was quiet, I would not play
ZORRO on him, ever.

You see in the 1970's they came
out with sample lipstick for Avon.
It was a little tiny lipstick about
an inch long.. We only had one
TV channel and that was only
when the leaves were not on
the trees. So for entertainment
we would pull practical jokes
on each other. Zorro came
to my mind.

So while the children were
so quietly asleep, I tipped
toed into their bedrooms and,
you guess it... mark the Z on
the foreheads of my children.
With exception of the one. Who
woke up.

I went to bed giggling and woke
the next morning, to laughter
and then yells.

See as each woke, the other would
see the red Z and laugh. And of course
the other saw it and laughed at
his sibling.

And then it dawn on them if their
sibling is laughing, THEY MUST have
a Z too. So the run to the mirror and then
the yelling. At first they thought it
was the brother who did not have
it. And were shocked that their
MOTHER would do such a thing.

After a summer of seeing if Mom
would play Zorro, they decided to
reverse the play. They decided on
the shortest of the children to be
the one to go do the deed.

Only trouble is Mother's have
radar, and I opened my eyes
just as the lipstick was coming
down. The child froze. The lip
stick froze. And I said... "don't
even think about it"

The child and lipstick disappeared.

Over the years Zorro appeared, but
the bigger the kid, the harder it was.
So Zorro rode off into the sunset.
To be talked about at family gathers,
for years to come.