Lucky me, I am married to a grocery checkout stand receipt examiner.

Yesterday we were at a super market standing in line behind one other woman. I decided to leave Elsbeth and wait in the walkway aisle. We were in the maximum 10-item line so as I watched a woman in front of Elsbeth got into a debate over the receipt and had to have an adjustment. Then as she emerged I decided to have some fun with her and I said " Madam, I am afraid I will have to take you to the manager. You had 11 items in your basket in a 10 item line.

She laughed and said, "I had 13."

She turned out to be Barbara Bull, whose kids played football at Kennedy High. She had discovered a mistake in her charges.

Then as I watched, Elsbeth who always checks her receipt , also got into a debate with the checker . She finally emerged with a grim look on her face. She had been charged $20 for a small bunch of green onions. The clerk agreed it was an error but it was over $5 so Elsbeth would have to go to customer service to get a refund. Checkers are human and do make mistakes. But a dumb company policy and another long line did not improve her temper.

Lesson? Always check your receipt .

Her only satisfaction was she bought 12 items in the 10-item line.

When I read the daily newspapers last week reporting on the hideous massacre on Capitol Hill I was astounded by the casual attitude by the father of the little 14-year daughter who was slaughtered. She had permission to go to a party in a place her parents had little knowledge of and her curfew was 3 a.m. Her parents obviously trusted her to be safe.

What has happened?

We raised eight and even on weekends at that age they all had a 10 p.m. deadline. Old fashioned? Yep, and we had violators.

We had punishment. Our 16-year-old daughter announced that she was playing in a tag football game at Evergreen and when she arrived home at 11 p.m. she was admonished and she would be grounded on the weekend. She stalked off to bed and we did the same

As we were reading she suddenly appeared in our bedroom doorway. She was in her Mother Hubbard nightgown, wearing pigtails and eating a Popsicle.

She asked if she could talk to us and plead her case. We said of course and she was so eloquent and so appealing , pointing out it was her first offense, it was only an hour late she had important plans for the which involved using the family car on the weekend. She should have gone to law school. We both melted faster than her Popsicle.

We have an inside family secret that you might be able to identify with. As parents of eight we have compiled a dismal record of automobile mishaps, crashes, scrapes, fender benders, and close calls, counting myself and Elsbeth our family record is 19 and luckily not one has ever resulted in serious injury though we have made several collision centers and insurance companies wealthy.

It is a common family putdown to come to an intersection with the name Kenny's Corner or Elsbeth's Intersection or Mike's Mistake.

Jerry's Horrible Happening is in White Center at Delridge and Barton when my car kept right on moving through a red light when I slid through a patch of black ice and helplessly mashed a door on a new Buick. I also backed into a woodpile, and I once foolishly opened my driver door to go in the bank on Alaska Street while a delivery truck driver was passing . He tore the door off.

Son Pat's corner is in Burien where he made too sharp a turn the same day he got his license (he was 16) and made a mess of my car and a phone pole.

Mike's Corner is at Ambaum and 116th SW when he was 16 and following too close. He still has a keloid under his lower lip.

We had a Triumph that got totaled three times. All by different kids.

Now we are keeping a memory book on grandkids. Like Kyles chiller tangling with a huge semi and tractor on the freeway with not a scratch to anybody except a totaled Volvo.

I am sure a lot of readers will be jarred into reliving some similar memories .

Jerry, the super dad, can be reached at publisher@robinsonnews.com