Getting Even With My Sister

1. Getting Even With My Sister Probably one of the first strange plans that I ever implemented.

2. The Year, 1982 In 1982, my sister was on the verge of becoming cool and I wasn’t. She had a nice stereo/record player (for the times) and insisted on proving why she decided to feather her hair. She had a nice collection of Heavy Metal albums including Ozzy Ozzbourne and ACDC, and insisted on playing her music loud. While feathering her hair - she played it loud, while squeezing into a pair of Jordache - she played it loud, while hiding matches and other “cigarette” paraphernalia in the front cover of her telescope - she played it loud. (That was a good hiding spot Michelle) After sensibly discussing this delicate matter in my ever so non-threatening “hey, can we have a serious discussion” voice, I was laughed at and she turned up the music even louder. It was time to come up with a plan and take action. Since my stereo/record player was a piece of shit compared to a piece of shit, I needed a way to amplify my radio so I could play mine loud and annoy her. But what’s a nine year old know about amplifiers?

3. The Master Plan Instead of bringing my sister to my music, I was taking it to her. While home alone at the age nine I decided that the only way for her to hear my music and disturb her was to rig up a speaker in her room. The plan was to drill a hole through our adjoining closet walls, (using a hand drill because I was afraid of the power one) place one of my speakers in her closet, run the wire back to my stereo, sit back & wait to blast her out of her room. But, there were two minor problems: (1) The coolest record I had to blast her with was “The Clash’s - Rock the Casbah.” and (2) I hadn’t thought about what would happen when she went to search for this mysterious noise coming out of her closet. The plan worked great until then! She went in her room, closed the door, and before she had a chance to turn on her radio, blam! I pumped up Rock the Casbah. But boy did I feel stupid when I heard her say to her friend on the phone, “I hear something coming from the closet.” I heard the closet door open and instantaneously felt dumb as shit because the gig was up. The true sign that the gig was up was when I heard her say “what the hell?” At that point, the plan backfired because I had to beg her to not tell mom and dad that I drilled a hole in their closet.

4. The Bedroom Layout - How It Was To Go Down

5. The Wiring Diagram Routing the speaker from my room to my sisters.

6. Actual Photos Going from the bottom left corner of my closet into my sister’s room.

7. Actual Photos This angle is coming into my sisters room from my room. When she opened the closet door, the speaker was about as smack dab in the middle of the closet as it could get. I don’t know why I didn’t try to hide it. After the gig was up, I was worried that bugs and spiders might try getting into my room from the inside of the wall, so I put a couple band aids over the holes. Yeah, that really worked. If anything it helped them heal faster if they got injured trying to get into my room.

8. Did The Parents Ever Find Out? At the time, my parents never found out. It wasn’t until around 18 years later that I fessed up to them at a family function. I figured they could punish me now. My parents even laughed pretty hard at that story. Did I ever tell them about the stuff I used to hide in the drop ceiling of Club Habel???