(picture pridefully provided by Dad)
Almost 20 years ago my dad, the ultimate gadget guy, created what we have come to call the snoop stopper. He works at an electrical supply company, so he always has the newest products available to him. As my two little brothers started getting older, he wanted to make sure that Santa's gifts were safe from their peeping eyes before morning. He built a little box with a motion sensor that he would face down the stairs to make sure us kids did not come upstairs to the tree and Santa's goodies. He even let us try it out to show us that there was no way we could get past it without the siren going off.
We often reminisce about the shenanigans. In the earlier years Tyler, my youngest brother, put tape over the motion sensors. This allowed us to still move past the snoop stopper without setting it off if we moved painfully slow. All 5 of us kids must have been there that year. We almost made it down the stairs, but somebody moved a little fast and set it off. And Dad loves it when he "wins."
Devin, my brother just younger than me, once set up a ladder outside the bathroom window upstairs. He was going to climb out the window and come in through the side door to unplug the snoop stopper. He found a note in the place of the ladder advising that a ladder wasn't a good idea... probably because Dad had taken it.
There are two stories we always laugh about, both signify the fun power struggle in this tradition and the ingenuity employed on both sides. Dad had the snoop stopper facing up the stairs (my youngest sister was a teenager and I was in college, mind you) and Devin jumped the banister and landed just behind the snoop stopper. Instead of following through with the plan, whatever that was, he ran back upstairs to us in excitement and hit a trip wire that was attached to a mouse trap... that was attached to an alarm. Ridiculous! Dad came running out in his underwear declaring his victory, but we resisted his celebratory scene because we most definitely won by getting past the actual device. Devin stayed upstairs with his head in his hands, rocking back and forth, "I almost had it. I almost had it..." This victory is still debated.
Perhaps the most memorable year was when I told my siblings, there were two sisters and one brother, that I would take care of beating the snoop stopper. We would still gather in a group and pretend to be scheming when Dad was around and it drove him crazy! The constant trash talk was fabulous. That was the year that Dad's snoop stopper reached perfection, but we had no way of knowing that until Christmas Eve, if he even chose to disclose his whole setup. Around 5 in the morning I received a call and my plan started to unfold. My youngest brother, Tyler, and his wife flew in from Georgia earlier that night (it was a surprise even to him until his wife handed him a plane ticket) and hid out at my house until this predetermined time. I told them where Dad's hidden key was and while they were looking for it in the garage the automatic paper towel dispenser went off and Tyler recalls almost wetting himself at the surprise. And Tyler told his wife that, knowing our father, he probably had a gun on them at that very moment. Ha! I think that is when my call came in because they could not find the key and, the details are a little fuzzy, I think I let them in the front door and set off the alarm. Dad started his celebrating and then came running out to claim his victory - yes, in his underwear. "Tyler?" Ah, that was fun moment. Seeing the whole family in such a reunion, so unexpectedly, was amazing. Pretty sure my eyes were not the only ones spilling with excitement. It turns out that Dad had motion sensors all over the house this year, inside and out. He recorded his voice on each one, telling him of the location being invaded at the central command station in his bedroom. So, when they were looking for the key in the garage, Dad just kept hearing his prerecorded voice "Garage. Garage." and was freaking out because there was no way those of us upstairs could've gotten to the garage without setting off a handful of other sensors. I think they passed some more sensors when they headed to the front door and Dad could not figure out what was going on. Ha! Of course, they then had to arm wrestle because that is what the men in my family do.
