Iv had sleeping problems my whole life and if I nodded off at the meeting I would get thumped in the back of my head by my step dad. We had nine kids in the family and my parents sat directly behind us four older ones, my brother, me, and my two ugly step sisters. My brother Mike and I use to play the thumping game. We would take turns acting like we were nodding off to see how long it would take to get thumped on the head. I would keep score and tally it up when we got home. It gave us a sense of pride to be the winner. That just shows how god dammed boring the meetings were.
I don't know how my step dad ever got anything out of the meetings because he was so busy putting little dents in the back of our heads. If one of us cracked up because the other one got thumped we were guaranteed a nice ass whoopen when we got home. If playing tag team head thumping was an Olympic sport, I'd have the gold metal. Once in a while we would make the grand sacrifice and in that low breath semi-loud whisper voice say "ow!" when we got thumped. This would generate a semi-silent laugh wave among the other kids in the hall and their parents not wanting to appear spiritually weak would reach over and thump their own kids. I never had to wonder why our family never got invited to the brothers and sisters homes for dinner.
Mike and I also played arm rest wars. This also brought a good head thumping. My brother who was a year older and much bigger then I was usually won that battle and won ownership of the arm rest between us. To get him back I use to reach over and shake him a little and whisper just loud enough for my parents to hear "Mike wake up!" He wasn't sleeping but that didn't matter, he got his head thumped anyway. Then Id get my head thumped for laughing.
My parents finally got smart and put our two step sisters in between us. This forced my brother and I to create a new game called "you're ugly." We would look to see if our parents were watching and when they weren't, we would lean over and whisper in our step sister's ear, "you're ugly." This would piss them off (because they were ugly) and then they would hit us. This would end up with both of us getting thumped. I figured it was a small price to pay for getting away with two victories. One, getting away with telling my step sister she was ugly, and two, watching her get thumped for hitting me.
Our family was a source of pure entertainment at the meetings. I know those people will never thank me for entertaining them through years of boring ass meetings. I sacrificed my young skull for the joy of others. It was a sad day in boringland when I grew up and started counting ceiling tiles.
Boy, the good old days.
Dave