It's not just my kids I harass.

For once I get to post a story about Grau instead of him posting about me, well okay it’s about his Elderspawn. For those of you that are new, or slow on the uptake, Grau and I are both re-enactors. We belong to the same group, so we do a lot of events together. Since we both have kids we tend to bring the childerbeasts along with us. There is another guy in our group that also has a child, and when he does events he tends to bring his kid along as well. For the protection of… well me… I’m going to be referring to the children as Elderspawn (Grau’s) and Otherspawn.

We participated in the last Northern Illinois Celtic Fest in July of 2002. My wife didn’t go because we had just found out she was pregnant with Clone (Which is the only reason I remember the year). I was selling swords at the time and had a table set up in hopes of making some cash of off the public. Unfortunately there were two other sword dealers there and they where able to under sell me. The swords they where selling were crap and I sold the real thing, and I refused to sell anything I wouldn’t use in combat. They had stainless steel and I had high carbon steel. So the prices of their swords were much lower then mine, and that’s all the public saw.

The problem with selling swords is that you get all kinds of attention from kids. Every little kid wants to come over and touch and pick up the swords. Well I don’t let them do that for safety and legal reasons. It isn’t just the public’s kids that are want to do that as well. I had Elderspawn and Otherspawn at my table, blocking the public, wanting to look and pick up swords. I kept telling them to get away and go bug their fathers. They would leave for a while, but they would come back. I finally had enough.

I own a pair of black and green leather gauntlets. I use them when sword fighting. After the umpteenth time of telling to get their dirty, greasy kid hands off of my swords, I picked them up and asked them if they knew what they where. I got a resounding, “No.” and a blank look. I advised the boys that those gauntlets are my “Spanking Gloves”. When ever kids get out of hand, I will put them on to spank the child because they hurt more. I then proceeded to put on the gloves and clap my hands. Because of the way they are made, when you do that it sounds like you are hitting a lot harder then you really are. The boys went running off and I thought I was done with them.

NO! The little snot weasels came back. They would try to say something to me, and I’d either hold up the gloves or say, “Spanking Gloves”. Nothing else, just that and it went on for ours. Our last conversation went like so:

Elderspawn, “Contagion, I just…”

Contagion, “Spanking Gloves”

Elderspawn, “But I…”

Contagion, “Spanking Gloves”

Otherspawn, “Can I…”

Contagion, “Spanking Gloves”

Otherspawn, “But we were…”

Contagion, “Spanking Gloves”

Both, “But wait…”

Contagion, “Spanking Gloves”

Olderspawn, “My dad has…”

Contagion, “Spanking Gloves” (Picks up gauntlets)

Otherspawn, “I’m going to…”

Contagion, “Spanking Gloves” (Starts putting them on)

Both kids go running in opposite directions screaming in fear. I hear Olderspawn crying to Grau, “Dad, Contagion is going to spank me!” I can’t remember what Grau said, but it didn’t sound too soothing. I heard Otherspawn tell his grandfather (Whom is also in our group), “Contagion said he was going to spank us!” between sobs. I remember the grandfather’s response was along the lines of, “I’m sure you did something to deserve it, it’ll stop hurting after a couple of hours.”

To this day when ever one of these boys starts to get in my hair… or honestly just to screw with their heads, I’ll just advise them I brought the spanking gloves with and I am not afraid to use them. It’s been almost three years of this now and the rest of the group still gets a chuckle out of it. They also will come up to me and ask in front of the boys if I brought them.