The Punchboard

Shirley showed up with a punch board one day. There were a hundred chances on it, and the grand prize, if you punched out the little pellet that hid the star, was a camera. The camera looked too good to be true in the accompanying illustration, and I immediately lusted for it. Dad was a pretty fair semi-pro photographer. He had a large cut-film portrait camera with a full set of lights, tripods, meters, and all the darkroom paraphernalia that he set up in the bathroom when he was printing. I envisioned myself following in his footsteps--just as soon as I won that camera.

Of course, if you punched out any pellet besides the star, you had to pay the amount of money that appeared when you peeled the pellet apart. The price for wrong choices ranged from 1 to 25 cents. The way it worked was that Shirley had to sell chances until somebody got the star. She then had to send the punchboard, along with the money collected, to the company and they would send her back two cameras--one for herself, and one to present to the winner.

The more I thought, the more I wanted that camera. I couldn't live without it. I dreamed of all the beautiful pictures that I could take with it. It was the only thing I needed to be happy for the rest of my life. I went into the house to ask Dad. He was sitting reading the paper while he waited for Mom to get supper ready. I stood respectfully beside his chair for a few moments, placing myself in a conspicuous position, so that he would eventually have to notice me. He continued to read, and I cleared my throat a couple of times to distract him.

"Hi, son," he finally said.

"Hi, Dad."

I waited, hoping he would continue the conversation and provide me with an opening to sell the camera idea. He seemed content to continue reading however, so I took the bull by the horns.

"Dad?" I said.

"Hm?"

"Guess what? Shirley's got a punch board," I said, trying to make it sound like the answer to our prayers.

"That's nice," Dad said.

"Guess what the prize is?" I enthused.

"What?"

"A camera! It's a neat camera, Dad, and it takes twelve pictures on one roll of film, and..."

"How much?"

"Huh?"

"How much does it cost to play?"

"Well, the most you can lose is 25 cents, but most of the punches have been punched, and I know I can win it, and..."

"Don't play. It's a gyp."

"Aw, Dad..."

"Don't play, I said." And he went back to his paper with an air of finality that I knew meant the matter was closed.

I stuck my hands in my pockets and shuffeled back outside. The crowd around Shirley had grown. Kids from two and three blocks away were streaming into Shirely's front yard. Several of them were taking chances, and they were all having to pay varying amounts of money. The star had not been found yet. I watched from the outskirts of the crowd as two more kids tried their luck. Both failed. The first kid had to pay fifteen cents, and the second had to pay three cents. There were only about fifteen punches left. The odds were getting extremely favorable, I thought. I knew I could pick the winner. There was not a doubt in my mind.

A lull came in the punching activity, and pockets of speculation developed in the crowd, as they tried to guess the most likely location of the star. Shirley looked up and saw me standing on the outskirts of the crowd.

"Don't you want to take a chance?" she said seductively. I swallowed hard and shook my head, remembering what Dad had told me. She looked disdainfully at me, as if I were some form of spineless worm.

"Chicken," said Dickie.

That one word did it. All I needed was to hear that word from the mouth of Dickie, the little weasel who lived next door, to push me over the brink into life on the wild side. I could take the scorn of Shirley and the rest of the kids, but I couldn't allow Dickie to get away with saying that.

"Gimme that," I growled, as I shouldered my way into the center of the crowd. Shirley smiled knowingly and handed me the punch board. I licked my lips and tried to keep my hands from shaking as I stared at the board. Now there were only ten pellets left unpunched. I had a one-in-ten chance. All I had to do was get the right one, and Dad would never have to know until I got the camera. And Dickie would eat his heart out with envy. I considered several punches, but finally decided on one that sat over in the corner by itself. It seemed to whisper, "choose me, choose me,". With hands that shook embarrassingly, I pressed the pellet out. I could feel my heart pounding as I pried the pellet apart.

And there it was. The maximum. Twenty-five cents. I felt as if I were going to pass out. I was so sure. To be tricked like that. I must have been cheated. That was the only explanation for it.

"Pay me," Shirley said coldly.

"I...I'll have to get it from my Dad," I said. My face felt hot. I felt like I was dreaming. A nightmare. I crept back into the house like a man going to the gallows. Dad was still reading the paper. I walked up beside his chair and stood there, sweating.

"How much?"

"Sir?"

"How much did you lose?"

"Twenty-five cents."

"Do you have twenty-five cents?" He asked. He knew I didn't. A quarter was a lot of money.

"No sir." I felt miserable. Dad put down his paper and reached in his pocket. He withdrew a quarter and handed it to me. "Take this and pay your debt," he said. "Then you come back in the house."

I took the quarter outside and handed it to Shirley. Then I returned to the house, expecting that the razor strap would be waiting for me.

Instead, when I came in, Dad got up and motioned for me to follow him. We went out into the back yard and over to a pile of lumber that Dad kept for home projects. I was puzzled when he began searching through the lumber. I decided that he was looking for a suitable piece of timber to punish me with. When he finally extracted a three-foot length of solid oak 4-by-4, I blanched and almost passed out. My god, I thought, surely he isn't going to use that on me. But I didn't say anything, I just followed when he motioned me toward the tool shed. I figured he wanted to take me inside where there would be no witnesses to the execution.

Inside the tool shed, he took a ruler and a pencil and meticulously began marking off segments on the piece of wood. I stood and watched, wondering and dreading what he was preparing to do to me. After he had made marks the full length of the wood, he took down an old keyhole saw that he kept hanging on a nail above the work bench. I had used the saw before, and I knew it was well past its prime and was as dull as a froe.

"Now, young man," Dad said, "you have lost twenty-five cents of my money. I want my money back. Can you repay me?"

I stared miserably at the floor. "No, sir," I mumbled.

"Very well then, you'll have to work off your debt. I have divided this beam into twenty-five equal blocks. Each block is worth a penny. For the next twenty-five days, when you get home from school, before you can go outside to play, you will saw me off a block and have it ready for me when I get home from work. Understand?"

I nodded, relief flooding through me. I wasn't going to get a spanking after all! I was home free! All I had to do was saw off a block for the next twenty-five days, and I was out of debt. What could be easier than that?

It didn't take me long to discover that it wasn't as good a deal as I had first thought. The dull saw, the thick piece of oak nearly as hard as steel--it was a long, arduous task to hack a block off of that stock, and by the time I finished, I no longer felt much like playing. Before my debt was finally paid, if I had been given the choice, I would have gladly taken the spanking. I never thought of Dad as being particularly creative in his approach to child rearing, but I have to give him credit for this one lesson--it has stuck with me throughout my life and has far outlasted what a spanking would have taught.

Now you know why I never play the lottery.