Saturday, November 17, 2012

Padiddle

"Padiddle!" i yelled excitedly as we drove home tonight. my husband looked at me strangely and smiled slightly, wondering what the heck made me yell out gibberish.

i repeated it again. "padiddle. puh-diddle. don't you know what that means? didn't you see it? don't you want to kiss me?!"

he looked at me even more strangely, no longer smiling, as if i'd lost my mind. obviously he grew up with an incomplete childhood because no one should grow up without the padiddle game.

when you're driving at night and you see a car coming toward you with one head light burned out, you yell "padiddle" at the top of your lungs and then you get to kiss the person of your choice in the car where you're riding.

as a kid, i think i learned this game from my aunts who were young and hip and cool and knew about things like kissing boys. i spent many nights as a young teenager riding in cars where boys were present and hoping that we'd run across one of those lovely padiddles so i'd have a perfect and legitimate opportunity to smooch a boy. i'd see a solo headlight coming our way and i'd hold my breath, hoping it was an elusive single lighted car and not another stupid motorcycle out to trick me and spoil my fun.

years went by and i never saw one of those buggers at the right time. i was always with my parents or maybe my brother when i'd catch a glimpse of one.

finally, one night i was riding in a car with several friends on our way to a youth group activity with our church. i was probably 15 years old. along the road toward us came a padiddle, unmistakable, definitely not a motorcycle. i yelled it out gleefully and then started looking around, thinking of who i was going to kiss.

it wasn't going quite the way i'd imagined in my head. i wasn't crowded into a backseat with several cute boys to choose from. there was one cute boy driving, one not cute boy in the passenger seat and then 3 or 4 girls crammed into the backseat together. i quickly decided the driver wasn't a good option because of the potential crashing factor. i had no interest in kissing the un-cute boy in front of me.

i couldn't bear to let the opportunity pass me by altogether, so i turned to my best friend who was sitting beside me and gave her a big smooch right on the lips.

all the other passengers started squawking and yelling about what had just happened. they couldn't believe i'd kissed her.

in my mind, it wasn't sexual, it was just funny. i'm not sure i'd ever even heard of lesb!ans (trying to trick the naughty google searches) before so i didn't think much of it or understand the dramatic reaction of my friends.

looking back on it now, i guess it shows just how naive i was at that time. i thought i was a lady of the world, but clearly i was wrong. it makes me smile to remember those times and the innocence of hoping for a chance to give someone a quick peck on the mouth. childhood is a wonderful thing.

19 comments:

  1. I think this is simply precious. innocence is a beautiful thing....and what a shame that 'growing' up tends to knock a lot of those qualities out of the way we act and see the world. thank you so much for sharing these wonderful memories. i'll make sure from now on I check out my fellow passengers on trips...just in case a Padiddle opportunity presents itself. Have a great weekend.

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  2. I've never heard of this game. I wonder if I'm too old to play.

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  3. Oh my gosh! My second husband used to say that when we saw a car with only one headlight on. We didn't know about the kissing part but you have thrilled me by reminding me of my late husband and how cute he was. Yay!

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  4. I remember saying that when I was with my girlfriends riding around town looking for something to do, not the kissing part. I will have to ask one of the girls about that one. Brings back good memories though.

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  5. This is so great and reminds me of a little game our family used to play when driving. I love how it was just funny to you because that's what it should be, great story Sherry.

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  6. We played it just as you described all through the high school years! I used to hate it when the driver would use the rear view mirrors as an advantage - unless I wanted a kiss.

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  7. Cool. I'll be watching for this now for sure but if my wife is driving I'm going to kiss her anyway.

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  8. I'd never heard the kissing part either.

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  9. My Husband doesn't understand my yelling out "DUCKS!" whenever I see a random duck on the side of the road.

    Hubby and I have a game we play, usually just to gross our son out. We kiss at every red light we have to stop at..lol.

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  10. well, I never played that game, which is probably why I grew up to be crusty and mostly joyless :) Har! I kind of kid.

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  11. We played Padiddle as well in high school! But there was no kissing in our version. Instead you had to slap the headboard of the car, and it was rumored to add an extra hour to your life....but only the first person to see the padiddle got the extra hour. I was well into college before I got the headboard slapping instinct out of my system. :D

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  12. Haaaa!You kissed a girl!
    I don't think these kids these days would even blink if that happened.
    Sincerely,
    Grandma

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  13. LOL! I've never heard of this game either ... I'm feeling like I was gypped in my teenage years!

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  14. My husband is going to LOVE that you reminded me of this game. In our family, we hit when we see a padiddle;-)

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  15. I fear games like this because in the heat and impulse of the moment I'll totally yell PADIDDLE! And then I'll realize there's nobody in the car I actually want to kiss.

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  16. The first time I ever heard of a "padiddle" was wayyyyy back in 1976. I was driving home with a whole bunch of friends after seeing "All the President's Men" at the drive-in. An Aside: You may not be surprised that I didn't take the movie all that seriously and preferred to goof around with other like-minded individuals. Anyway, the girl who would become my girlfriend shouted "Padiddle!" and gave me a kiss on the cheek. This, of course, thrilled me, even though she had to explain what a "padiddle" was. To this day (and after two Mrs. Penwassers), I still smile at the thought of it.
    She ended up breaking my heart, but it's still a very sweet memory.
    Thank you for this. :-)

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  17. Oh man...padiddle... I almost forgot about that game. it kind of sucks because you never see them now!! Iguess cars seem to be made a bit better than they were back then. We never attached kissing to padiddle. I'm glad you chose the girl, LOL :)

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  18. I love this, Sherilin! So sweet. I had never heard of this game before, unfortunately. It could have been fun in my youth group days - although no one would have had the nerve to actually kiss anyone.

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  19. And to think the only car game I knew back in the day was slug bug.

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