The Punch with a Punch

Written by Barney Parmington, Published on 1/20/2009, Re-published on 7/26/2010

The Fall Festival was always a big thing in Chagrin Falls the weekend of Thanksgiving. Friday and Saturday featured important events for many of the high school sports teams. Specifically, the last football game was scheduled on Friday night, and the Chagrin Invitational Wrestling Tournament was held on Friday and Saturday. Though, all games and competitions ended by 3:00 p.m. on Saturday. Everyone -- parents and kids alike -- needed time to prepare for the big Fall Festival Dance, held Saturday night.

While mothers are well known for being incredibly sentimental as their children grow up, the truth is that fathers are just as emotional. Sure, we may not want to talk about our feelings out loud. And we certainly don’t get all giddy as our children get dressed up for special occasions. But, inside, we secretly take great pride in seeing the amazing young adults that our children are becoming. In fact, that was exactly what I was thinking while I watched a pack of gushy mothers take picture after picture of our children as they were about to head to dinner, before the big dance. (That, plus how I was going to get a digital copy of those pictures.)

As the kids got into the limo, I thought what an amazing evening my son, RJ, had ahead of him. He was with Diane, a girl he really liked. And it was apparent that she really liked him, too. Diane had worked miracles for my son’s health and eating habits. He had always had a huge sweet tooth, but since Diane was a diabetic who could not eat sweets, he had stopped eating them as well in support of her.

RJ and Diane were going to the dance with three other couples. This was their first formal dance and the parents had spared no expense. We had rented them a limo so that they did not have to be driven by parents. The children planned to go to a nice dinner prior to the dance. The boys had even taken dance classes in order to surprise the girls with their newfound rhythm. I had no idea how the football coach had gotten the entire team to agree to it, but something told me it had a lot to do with a choice between dance lessons or lots and lots of extra laps at practice. Even more amazing was that, as far as I knew, the entire team had managed to keep it a secret from the girls.

Fortunately for me, I was one of the lucky parents picked to be a chaperone. The dance went from 9:00 p.m. until 1:00 a.m., and I had the first shift, from nine o’clock to eleven. I got there early so that I could watch the couples arrive. Principal Whittenmeyer cornered me as I walked in the door. Each year, he made the punch for the event. He was so proud of his “secret formula” (and no one had the heart to tell him that we all knew that it was just Kool-Aid). As I walked in the door, he relayed that this year, he planned to give every student a Breathalyzer to test for alcohol, before they were allowed to enter the dance. I thought that was a great idea, especially because that meant that he would be guarding the door all night. That meant that I was not going to have to talk to him all night. He then pointed me towards the punch and watched as I sipped from the plastic cup. I smiled and gave him a reassuring thumbs-up. (Yes, it was Kool-Aid again this year.)

I took my cup and moved to the other side of the gym to watch as everyone arrived. It was fun to observe this great occasion, as all of the children I had known since they were in kindergarten came in dressed up for their first formal event. One of the first students to arrive was Carole. Carole had always been one of my favorite kids. However, for some reason, Carole could never seem to get a date. This night, she arrived at the dance by herself. While most of the girls with dates were arriving without coats, Carole had worn one. When she took her coat off near the punchbowl, I was very pleased to see that even though she had no date, she had still taken great care to dress up for the dance. Since she and RJ had been friends for years, I hoped that RJ would ask her to dance at least one dance during the night.

And let me tell you, I almost had a heart attack when I saw Dan OKane. Dan was a junior who was nationally ranked as a wrestler. Like every other year, he dropped as much weight as he could in order to get into the lowest possible weight class. This was the first time I had ever seen him in anything other than a sweat suit during wrestling season. He lived in one of those plastic suits that allowed athletes to sweat constantly. Yet, here he was in a suit and tie, looking smashing. I bet his parents were really proud of him. As was his nature to be helpful, Dan was constantly getting punch for everyone and he spent a lot of time by the punch bowl talking to his friends.

That was when RJ and his group finally arrived. They obviously had a wonderful time at dinner as they were all laughing and smiling when they arrived. After passing through the breath test, they were all directed by Principal Whittenmeyer to the punch bowl. Soon after that, I saw Diane passing out punch to everyone.

I did my best to play it cool and not go over and talk with all of the kids I knew. Fortunately, many of them stopped over during the night to say a quick hello. Even RJ stopped by about an hour into the dance. He was standing there talking to me when he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his stomach. It seemed as if he had eaten something that did not agree with him. I started to ask what he had for dinner when I noticed that most of the students were also clutching their stomachs in pain.

As I looked around the room, it quickly became apparent that there were only five people who were unaffected and I was one of them. Dan quickly walked away from the punch bowl and headed over to where I was, stopping to get Carole and Diane on the way. There were three of the four other unaffected people. Principal Whittenmeyer, the last healthy person, saw everyone converging on me and walked over as well. Very quickly we realized that someone had spiked the punch. Since I had been the first one to have some and I had not gotten sick, it certainly looked as if I had done something to the punch to make everyone sick. Before anyone did anything foolish, I pulled out my cell phone and called 911.

As the paramedics were taking care of everyone, the police arrived to question everyone. I walked up to the police and told them that I already knew who had spiked the punch bowl.