TL;DR: I made my parents believe something was wrong with their van. They spent a lot of money and time over 7+ years trying to fix it, but never figured it out. I win.

My parents were very strict. They ruled with an iron fist and expected perfect obedience. We weren't allowed to speak our minds, got in trouble over frivolous things, and were often punished for imagined wrongdoings. I was a handful as a child, I admit it and was far from perfect. As a result, I was punished a LOT.

When I was about 10 years old, I started a petty revenge that went on for years! I'm in my 40s now and they still don't know. I was tired of being yelled at and punished for things that were out of my control.

We had a Dodge Ram van back in the '80s-'90s. There were two full bench seats behind the driver and front passenger, meaning this van could hold 7 passengers. It was also a manual transmission (I know, weird for a van) with NO options. Manual windows, no A/C, and AM radio only. The one option it had was to reverse the direction of the first bench seat, so it would face the rear.

My four siblings and I had assigned seats in the van, to cut down on fights. I was seated on the back bench at the far right. Because the bench in front of me could change direction, there was some extra, metal hardware installed on the floor - right under my foot. Enter my petty revenge.

If I felt I had been treated unfairly, I would start tapping on the metal fasteners with my foot the next time we had to go somewhere. I only tapped when the car was in motion, and kept rhythm with the engine speed. The engine goes faster, and tapping speeds up. The car stops, tapping stops. I never did it if I was the only kid in the van, but I didn't do it every time, either. I didn't want them to reason out that it only happened when I was there, or trace the sound to me if the car was stopped. The trick was to stare out the window, fiddle with toys, or otherwise ignore my parents' quiet conversation about engine troubles while tapping.

I can't count the number of times we pulled over so they could try to pinpoint the source of the metallic tapping noise. Sometimes they'd drive with different windows open to see if they could hear where it was coming from, but the sound of the wind would drown it out. There were extra oil changes, fluids flushed, the engine torn apart, etc. My dad would spend his weekends trying to identify what was causing the noise. My mother, whose knowledge of cars barely covered how to put gas in the tank, constantly henpecked him about it. She was convinced the van would suddenly explode and the world would end if the tapping wasn't fixed NOW. They put a lot of time and money into trying to "fix" it.

If I got tired of tapping, I would wait until the car stopped or maybe until the gear was shifted, and then abruptly stopped tapping. I also would stop for up to a couple of weeks if they did any servicing on the van. They'd think it was fixed, but soon enough it started up again. Since flushing the transmission worked last time, let's do it again! Or an oil change, a lube job, clutch service, change the breaks, etc., etc., etc. It was a constant project.

About 2-3 years into my petty revenge, something changed. My next younger sister (by 4 years) caught me in the act. She was seated at the other end of the bench. Our parents were arguing about the sound, again, and I was tapping away, again. We all knew about the tapping problem and had even been called in to help solve the mystery, so there was no feigning innocence. Fortunately, my little sister wanted some revenge of her own. Our eyes made contact, and there was understanding. I was causing the sound, she knew it, and in that look, she solemnly swore to keep my secret. But she wanted in.

I took my sister aside and told her all the "rules". Never both of us at the same time, only in the back seat (there was hardware under her foot, too), barely loud enough to be heard, and all the other tricks I used to evade detection. We continued to torment our parents, even through their bitter divorce and beyond. I moved away at 17, but the tapping continued.

Eventually, that big old van went to live on a farm up north, to pull donuts and listen to AM radio talk shows with all the other old vans and wood-paneled station wagons. My mother kept the van after the divorce but never did solve the mystery of the tapping sound.

I like to think it still bugs her.

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Diana Sampson

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Onyx Delson

Onyx Delson

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3 months ago

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Wow, you're pretty smart. Are you still in contact your parents?

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Back in the day there used to be a phone number you could ring to check that your phone (landline) was working. You dialled the number and then hung up and a few minutes later the phone would ring. One day when I was nine my mother was screaming her lungs out at me and I dialled the number without her knowing. When the phone rang I waited until she was getting close and then picked it up and said "No, she can't come to the phone. She's being very naughty right now'" and hung up. I got belted pretty hard for that but it was kind of worth it.

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Sue Denham

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Onyx Delson

Onyx Delson

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3 months ago

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Lol 😂

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I was annoying my mam a little too much. She told me to 'go outside and play with the traffic'.
Now, normally this was a harmless thing to say as we lived in the a**e end of nowhere. Even up on the main road (about 2.5 miles from our house), you'd only see a handful of cars a day. So it was just a slightly nicer way of saying, '%&£$ off'
However that day was Wednesday, when the bank came into the local town, so there was a few more cars around lunchtime, which happened to be about that time.

Long story short, I got run over and my mam & dad had to spend the next 6 weeks making regular visits to me at the hospital which was about a 2.5-3 hour dive each way. She stopped say that phrase after that.

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Donkey boi

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