anecdote from my youth

Here's an amusing anecdote from my youth. I used to like playing with green plastic soldiers, but my mom was anti-war (odd, considering what a battle-axe she was) and wouldn't buy me the soldiers. I was too young for a paper route to make my own money, and our house was miles away from a store. My father brought me home a bag of soldiers one night, and I was out of my mind with happiness. I began to play with them, but then my mom came into the room, holding a phone with an extension cord, and she sat down and said, "Okay, you can play with your soldiers, fine. But I'm going to sit here, and every time one of them gets killed or injured, I'm going to telephone their mother. Ready? One, two three, play ..." Well, you can imagine how much fun that was.
-- The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland