When I was in elementary school, there were no big dances to look forward to – there were skating parties!  Good old fashioned roller-skating parties!  Every year there were two of them sponsored by our school at the wonderful Haygood Skating Center.  I abso-freakin-lutely LOVED going to skating parties.  I loved playing four corners, limbo and shoot the duck.  I loved the couples skate to the hottest Journey songs!  I loved the whole shebang.  BUT, what I loved most was getting the rink pizza with my friends and the big old sticker vending machine in the front of the rink that gave me beautiful gems like this for my sticker collection (yes, I was a collector):

One skating party in particular, my mom would not give me money for pizza and a sticker.  She had made meatloaf and told my sister and I that we would be eating it or else – and that was the end of the conversation.  Well that was NOT acceptable in my book, so I made an executive decision and went into her purse and took a five dollar bill.  After dinner, she took us to the skating party, and she went to the Blue Hawaii to meet some of the other mom’s for appetizers and drinks while we skated.  Things were going smoothly; I skated the night away and played all the skating games.  I skated the couples skate with my super cool boyfriend Kevin Braun.  I ate pizza with my friends and shared with my sister and after pizza, I bought her and I our shiny prism stickers from the vending machine.  When she asked where I got the money for it all, I told her that I had found the money next to the curb outside, when we were waiting in line to get into the rink and she totally believed me.

When the party was over, we waited out front for my mom to pick us up (back then it was nothing for our parents to just ditch their six and eight year old children at a public skating rink).  We weren’t in the car five seconds and big-mouthed Kelly blurted out all about us getting pizza and stickers.  When my mom asked how we got them, she kept blurting about the five dollars I miraculously found.  My mom looked right at me and said “Hmmm, that is funny, I am missing exactly five dollars out of my purse, which I did not have at the restaurant to leave as a tip – they wouldn’t happen to be the same five dollars, would they?”  I was busted and got a nice spanking with the wooden spoon when I got home – but you know what?  It was totally worth it!!!