Spaghetti on the Ceiling

I don't remember why the story came up yesterday.  I'd taken my son, Richard, to McDonald's for lunch, and we were laughing about a few different things, and I found myself again telling him the story of the Spaghetti on the Ceiling.  And I thought, I really should write this one on my blog.  So here I go.

My parents would, every now and then, assign all five of their children to work together on something, unsupervised.  I sometimes wonder if they realized how much more goofing off we did that way than when we worked alone, or only two at a time.  I remember group dish-washing tasks during which we all wore sudsy caps, dishwater streaming through our hair and rolling down under the collars of our shirts, for example.  (I also remembering telling my siblings I would pay them to just go away and let me do the job alone; I got in trouble for that.)

One weekend when my older brother, Clint, was home from college, we five were assigned to prepare dinner -- spaghetti.  We got the ground beef browned and poured in the sauce, and had the spaghetti boiling.  We probably had a salad.  Todd helped David and Michelle set out the plates, cups, and flatware along the bar on the kitchen island, where the family usually ate.

I pulled up a strand of spaghetti and tasted it to see whether it was done.  Clint watched me, then said, grinning, "You know how Dad says you can tell if spaghetti is done, don't you?"

Oh, yes.  We all knew.  We also knew how Mom protested whenever Dad mentioned it.  And how she would yell if we actually tried it.

If she knew, that is.

"You throw some against the fridge, and if it sticks, it's ready," we all whispered in unison.  Clint took the fork and pulled up a strand of spaghetti, letting it drip and cool for a moment before walking across the linoleum floor to the refrigerator.  Splat!

We all fought to stifle our giggles.  The spaghetti had passed the fridge test.  Clint pulled the spaghetti off the fridge and ate it, rubbing away the mark with his shirt sleeve.  I put the colander in the sink and poured in the contents of the pot, draining off the boiling water.  Then I picked up another long strand.  "Well," I said.  "THAT piece was done.  I wonder if this one would stick to the oven door?"

The oven test agreed with the refrigerator test.  But could we really be SURE without further testing?

Spaghetti stuck to the toaster.  The sliding glass door.  The cupboard doors.  The barstool legs.  I'm not sure how quiet our giggles were by this point, as each of us thought of a new and better place to test spaghetti.

"I wonder," I said, looking up, and with my four siblings looking on, and standing on the living room side of the bar, I flung one last strand of spaghetti straight up -- and it stuck.  But before I could climb up onto a bar stool to get it down...

"Is dinner done yet?" Mom called, coming into the room.

"Oh, yes.  We're just getting it on the table," we said.  Mom called Dad and we all sat down to eat, each of us kids stealing glances at the spaghetti clinging to the ceiling.

Now, I said that there were five of us kids, but we had another sibling who joined us about then.  Kibbles was our kitten, rescued from the laundry room window well during a bad rainstorm.  He was mostly black, with some bits of white.  Dad called him Mom's "little black son," just to drive her crazy.  (I'd suggested we name him Cougar because (a) Clint was a BYU Cougar when Kibbles arrived, and (b) he was a crazy attack-kitten that would tackle anything that moved -- which I associated with football.  He was Cougar for a very short time before David said his name was Kibbles, because he was "Kibbles 'n' Bits" dog food.)

Kibbles had an eye for movement, and it wasn't long before that strand of spaghetti began begging for his attention.  One bend in the middle released its hold on the ceiling, one loop drooping.  We five exchanged looks.  Kibbles parked himself below the spaghetti and stared up, watching it.

Another loop dropped.  Kibbles jumped up onto the arm of the couch, and then onto the back to get closer to it.  I began to hope that when it dropped, Kibbles would simply snatch it up and devour it, and our little activity would remain a secret.

One end swung down, dangling a good four inches below the ceiling, and Kibbles started begging it to come down the rest of the way.  MRROOOOOOW!  MRRRROWWW!

Quick as lightning, David jumped off his stool and grabbed Kibbles, petting him forcefully and trying to push his head down.  "NICE KITTY!" he crooned desperately, as Kibbles fought to keep his predator's eye on the prey.

"What is wrong with that cat?"  Mom asked, turning around,  "What's he looking --  TODD BENNION!!"

I'm ashamed to say that it took me years to admit to Mom that I was the one who threw that strand of spaghetti.  I let her and Dad yell at my little brother about something that I did.  Not that any of us were totally innocent in this escapade -- and we all did get into some trouble.  But Todd got into plenty of trouble on his own without taking my punishments.  (I've also apologized for this several times, but still feel guilty for it.)


So I told the story again, to Richard and we laughed about it.  "And that," I said, "is why we don't have a cat; you can't trust one to keep a secret."

Richard looked stricken, "It's not because you're allergic?!" he said.