1986: Lionel Ritchie - Dancing on the Ceiling

Saturday morning was usually cleaning time. I'd get up extra early to eat four bowls of cereal at the fireplace and watch cartoons in the family room. I always poured a ton of milk in the bowl, enough to cover all the cereal. Often, I'd leave the bowl on the fireplace, and after some time it would be stuck to the fireplace. For some reason, the "family room" was our main hang out spot in the house. The living room, in contrast, was only a "formal" room that we only used at Christmas time.
Cartoons were usually done with around 11 or 11:30am, and WWF Superstars was on after that. Usually by that time, my mom was planting the seed that cleaning would start taking place. I have vivid memories of cleaning the house and watching Spider Man.



"Dancing on the Ceiling" was one of the first songs I ever recorded on my "dual-cassette" boom box. It was all over the radio, so I just taped it off the radio. The song made my 6 year old self hyperactive. I remember having to clean my room, and after I was finished I would jump on the bed. I wonder where the parental control of not allowing kids to jump on the bed came about because my mom didn't seem to mind.

My sister had the room right next to mine, but around the corner. We had a clothes chute right in front of my door. The thing to yell was "bombs away" while dropping clothes down the shoot. The saying eventually evolved to "bombs your clothes."

Cleaning my room most always coincided with my sister cleaning hers as well. Her big collection at the time was Cabbage Patch Kids. They were all the rage in the 80's, and moms literally fought for them during Christmas shopping rushes. I don't remember how many she had, but it was enough to span at least one row of them across her full-sized bed. Amy would clean her room, and put all of her Cabbage Patch Kids in a row on her bed, and stop by my room. We would pretend she owned an orphanage, and I was a customer. So she would escort me into her room and introduce me to all the babies. I would get their names and how long they were in the orphanage. Based on all that criteria, I would pick one to keep. Looking back I'm not sure what I did with it after I chose one. If it went to my room, I can't image too much time passed before she took it back. Not "back to the orphanage," but back to her room (play concluded).

When we started to get older, it would be a little bit more devious. For example, Amy would design a menu for lunch. Lots of layout and design went into this sheet (she will grow up to become a graphic designer/photographer). I got to pick from four or five different sandwiches to eat for lunch. Keep in mind this was something like 1. jelly, 2. peanut butter, 3. peanut butter and jelly, etc. The very last time we played that game she spiked my sandwich with Mrs. Dash seasoning. I was pretty mad. Even when she made it over again, I had to check the sandwich by peeling apart the halves of bread.