There are just those moments. You know, those moments when your brain tells you the correct way to act, but it also tells compels you to do something you know is completely wrong. As an adult, for the most part, we have these compulsions under control, but a child, that’s another story.

That’s the story I want to talk about. It’s “the look.”

Every child has a parental “look” that stops them dead in their tracks, or at least makes them rethink their next move.

In my childhood home (and probably my child’s childhood home), it was the sideways glance.

Although I was usually fairly, well-behaved, and as an only child, accustomed to being the little sprout in the room, knew how to control and conduct myself, but sometimes I had this mischievous imp that took over my soul, controlling my actions, and the word quit didn’t quite make it to the recesses of my cerebrum. The moments, like when my mom couldn’t say a word correctly and I would bring it up ad nauseum, or my dad would be trying to work on a musical interlude, and I wouldn’t stop plucking a guitar string or plunking a piano key. Like crack to my brain, I couldn’t get enough – giggle, giggle, ha, ha, ha, and all was fine and dandy until I got the sideways glance – The Look…

You know, the one where the face turns toward you, but not the full face, just a kinda hint at the fire that is burning below. Usually there’s not even a frown, because a frown you can further your instigation, but a grim teeth-gritting glance that says, “Just one more, I dare you,” and you know you’d better end the antics.

I, the one who pushed it too far, would then proceed to feel mortally wounded, as if this rejection were a sign of their lack of love, as if I were the innocent one. I, no longer loved by those who have  professed to love me through anything, would retreat, in defeat, to my room or a friend’s house or my grandmother’s house (to tell her how mean they are), and vow that they would never hurt me again.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I still feel this way.