I was playing at my friend Amanda’s house. when we heard agitated yelling from her next-door neighbour’s home. It sounded like the neighbour lady was lecturing her son, Tony, who was one year ahead of us in school. We decided that we wanted a closer look, so we crept forward and hid behind the bushes by Tony’s house. We peeked over the top of the bushes and caught a glimpse of Tony’s mom yelling at him. He had a look of dismay on his face and was pleading his case, but it was to no avail – Tony’s mom proceeded to wallop her son’s backside with a wooden hairbrush. Amanda and I couldn’t believe our luck.  We stifled our giggles, so as to not give our position away, and watched intently.  Tony went from crying to frantic screaming as his mother laid on the wooden spoon. When she finally let him up, Tony jumped off his mother’s lap and she dragged him by the ear and deposited him in the corner. We decided that we’d better get gone while the getting was good, so we stealthily retreated from Tony’s yard back to Amanda’s house – and we would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn’t for Amanda’s big fat mouth. Later that day, after I had gone home, Amanda saw Tony outside and unwisely teased him about his spanking. She told him that we had both seen him getting spanked and crying like a baby. Tony got agitated and started yelling at Amanda. The noise drew the attention of his mother. Needless to say, Tony’s mom was none too happy about all this. She escorted Amanda back home and informed my friend’s mother about our eavesdropping. The first thing Amanda’s mom did was dish out a hard spanking to her daughter with the belt. The second thing she did was call my mom and report on my own misbehaviour. Mom called me into her room. She told me what she had discovered and informed me that I was about to receive a big spanking. Mom lectured me for a while on how wrong it was to spy on someone, and then I went over her lap for the big spanking that had been promised. When the spanking over her knee had finally finished she informed me that she was going to get the paddle. I was ordered to stand up, bend over and wait while she went to get it. There was a mirror in the room. I glanced at myself in it – hands on knees,  and with a tear-streaked face. I  was totally humiliated by how ridiculous I looked. Mom returned with the paddle and gave me five powerful cracks. I jumped out of position each time and finished the fifth one with a dance that rivalled Tony’s. Then I too was deposited in the corner. After my corner time, there was one more indignity for me to suffer. Mom made me write an apology to Tony. How I cringed when I gave Tony that letter! That was the first time that I was ever hand spanked and then paddled, but it would not be the last. My mom never gave more than five swats with the paddle – a hangover, I think, from her days as a teacher, where five swats was the maximum that could be given to a child. So from that point on, if she thought I had been really bad, it was hand spanks first and then five of the paddle to finish.