While shopping at my local Wal-mart, I came across this rather disturbing tableau: a mother and her approximately four-year-old daughter sitting in the middle of an aisle in the toy department with two Disney princess dolls on the floor before them.

Mother: Amber, you can only have one of the dolls. How does that make you feel?
Amber: I want both of them…
Mother: You can only have one. You will have to leave one here. Does that make you sad?
Amber: I want Ariel.
Mother: Okay. Then you need to tell Belle good-bye and put her on the shelf. How does that make you feel?
Amber (starting to cry): But they want to play together.
Mother: Amber, the princesses are not real. You need to express what you are feeling. Amber, share with Mommy the emotions you are experiencing…

Shaking my head, I moved on. Actually, I was afraid if I said anything, ol’ Margaret White would throw both me and lil Carrie in the prayer closet, shouting “I can see Ariel’s dirty pillows…everyone can! She was all weak and backsliding when Eric touched her, touched her with the smell of roadhouse whiskey on his breath, and she liked it! Oh, how she liked it! And now the devil has come home to roost in her shells, in her fin, in her fiery red tresses. We’ll pray, because sin never dies…WE WILL PRAY!”

And as I moseyed off, I remembered a time in those days before parental concerns over psychological damage, when I was faced with a similar choice. ***Note: The following story is yet another entry in my continuing “wicked funny shit my mother did that made me the obsessive-compulsive fag I am today” series. (See the 3-15, 3-22, 3-29, and 4-12 posts for more crazy mom fun.)

We were at the Econ-o-Mart and I wandered off to the toy department and found much to my delight, both a Cornelius and a Zira action figure by Mego. I could not believe my eyes! I already had General Ursus, Dr. Zaius, and Astronaut Taylor but only because I had never seen Cornelius or Zira. I had to have both; if I left one, some other less deserving child with not a fraction of the O.C.D. I had would snap it up.

Clutching both figures in a death grip, I searched the store for my mother and presented to her my amazing find. But instead of the gleeful dance I expected, she merely glanced sidelong at me and growled her standard, “Just one, Dirk. I am not arguing over this. One. And if you push the issue, it’ll be none.”

I was on the horns of a dilemma. I had to have both of them, I had to. How could I possibly re-enact the tragic dual homocide of the simian Romeo and Juliet from “Escape From the Planet of the Apes” without both figures? I couldn’t. And I already had a little plastic monkey from a bag of jungle animals my cheap ass aunt had given me for my birthday when my cousin was tired of playing with them (she was the original re-gifter) to play the role of Caesar, their orphaned offspring.

I knew you could go to jail for stealing, but lying…I had never heard of anyone sent to the joint for a fib. And so my six year old mind set upon a course of action. I carried both figures with me as my mother continued to shop, periodically reminding me I was only going home with one. “I know,” I would reply wistfully, “it’s just so hard to decide. I’m just thinking about it.”

When we finally got to the check-out, I made my move. I threw Zira on the counter for the clerk and held Cornelius in my hands while my mother unloaded the cart. I moved to the front of the cart, held up Cornelius, and announced in hushed tones, “My mom said I could have this.”

The clerk smiled, said okay, and continued to ring up our purchases. Once she had a bag full, I snatched it off the counter and shoved Cornelius inside. My master plan was going off without a hitch. I watched as cotton balls, band-aids, and Zira were thrown into another bag. Sweet victory was mine!

I could barely wait to get home, still in disbelief that I had pulled one over on my mother. She obviously wasn’t as smart as she had led me to believe. My mind began racing with the infinite possibilites and countless goodies I would obtain under this new system I had just implemented.

When we got home, I helped carry the bags in and was about to retrieve my ill-gotten gains when my mother told me to let the dog out. I hurried to the door and released the hound, ready at last to get down to some serious Ape play. But when I got back to the kitchen, my mother was standing there with both Zira and Cornelius in her hands.

“I said one. Did you steal one of these?” she asked.

“No, mom,” I replied and burst into tears, spilling my guts like a jailhouse susie snitch.

My mother laid the toys down and went over to the desk where she poured over her receipt, only to discover that the clerk had not charged her for Cornelius. “Well, that is still stealing in a way, even if it is her fault for being so stupid,” she announced, coming back into the kitchen. “We are going to go back down there and re–” She stopped.

There I sat, in the middle of the kitchen floor, playing with my apes, packages ripped to shreds.

“Dirk! What did you do? We can’t return that now!”

I smiled. “Can I just keep it, Mom? Please?…I’ll never do anything like that again…I promise.”

My mother thought for a minute, then went to the phone and began dialing. “Hello? Is this the police? This is Dirk Mancuso’s mother…my son has stolen a toy and I need you to come and take him away to jail…I don’t know…maybe until he is twenty or so…yes, lock him up in a dark cell and throw away the key…bread and water?…that would be fine…okay, we’ll be waiting. Bye.”

And suddenly, Cornelius and Zira were forgotten. As the tears started anew, I began begging my mother to call the police back and tell them not to come, I’d pay the store back, I’d even give BOTH toys back if she would tell them not to take me away.

“It’s out of my hands now, Dirk. You are a criminal and a bad boy. And you will have to go to jail. Now go sit in your chair and wait for them to come get you.”

And so I went over and sat in my little red rocker, sobbing and looking out the window for hours, waiting to be led off in cuffs. Unbelievably, at one point, police sirens actually did go off, triggering a new round of sobs from me and an “oh, that must be them on their way for you, Dirk” from my mother. I remember sitting there until way after dusk, remembering my mother’s previous warnings about how little kids in jail got used by the bad men any way they wanted. And I remember being drug out exhausted from crying and stress when I went to bed that night.

And after that, I never thought about stealing, jaywalking, speeding or anything else even barely on the cusp of naughty. I especially never thought about trying to pull a fast one over on my mother again.

God, my mom was a friggin’ genius with kids.