Empty Stocking

Early in September, below the slippery slide,
Ella McLauglin asked me if I would step aside
and let her have a turn at it before I took another,
and since I looked around and couldn’t see her older brother,
I said no girls could play on it. This slide was just for “men,”
then bounded up the ladder and slid on down again.

Later, In October,  I thought it would be fun
to raid our neighbor’s pumpkin patch, to smash them and then run.
Some friends wanted to help me, but I wielded the bat.
Those pumpkins all exploded with such a lovely “splat!”
Mr. Cramer chased us, but he fell and hit his head,
and by the time he reached our house, I was snug in bed!

At the beginning of November, right after Halloween,
I opened sister’s window and removed the screen.
I found her bag of candy, making off with all the best,
leaving her with licorice and apples and the rest
left over after I had taken chocolates and  toffee.
What I left? The gross flavors like cinnamon and coffee!

But for all of December, I remembered to be good.
Mom had said that Santa kept accounts and that he would 
know if I was naughty, so I knew this was the time
when I needed to be perfect—the very paradigm
of virtue, yet in spite of this, I must sadly relate
that all my efforts to reform simply came  too late.

It seems that I just waited too long in turning face.
You can’t just come in sliding tardily into base
when it comes to changing “naughty” check marks into “nice,”
for Santa checks his naughty list more than once or twice.
Next Christmas I am going to be sure that I remember,
that Santa also checks the months that lead up to December!

Only two prompts  had been posted by 4 a.m. this morning when I was ready for a rhyming.  Those prompt words were slide and paradigm. Here are their links:
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/12/fowc-with-fandango-slide/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/12/your-daily-word-prompt-paradigm-may-12-2019/