The Paddle Machine

When my Aunt Mary used to babysit us when we were kids she had a game that we loved to play (boy, were we stupid!). It was called "the paddle machine". Basically it was the same thing as an Indian running the guantlet except it was the kiddie version.

We loved this game. Of course it sucked to be the one crawling through the gauntlet but it was worth it once you got to the end of the line and got to do some beating yourself. Here's how it went. We would all line up in a row and spread our legs wide apart. Then one kid would crawl through the tunnel and while they were crawling the rest of us would beat the living daylights out of that poor, unfortunate child. When you got to the end you would stand up and join the line and commence to beating the crap out of the next kid.

What were really bad were what we called "roadblocks". Roadblocks would happen when the kid doing the crawling was too big to fit through the kid's legs who were doing the beating. So they would get stuck. As long as you were stuck, trying your best to wedge yourself through that too small opening, it was legal for the other kids to keep beating you unmercifally. It was a brutal game for brutal kids.

I have to point out that my Aunt Mary denies participating in this game. What I remember is that she actually invented the game. Of course, somebody older and meaner than her probably taught it to her and she just took it on down the line. That's the way we did stuff back then. It was all in fun, believe it or not.

I consider her denial to be the same kind of denial that my mom and dad used to give when they said that they never whipped us! I would dearly love to know who was whipping our asses with a belt (or whatever) all the time. That person sneaking in our house and disguising themselves as our parents should be prosecuted!

To all those people who are into spanking and stuff like that, I will never understand you. You must not have had the kind of whippin's that we did when we were kids!