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Discipline in our famly was known as deliverance. Deliverance consisted in being packed into a steamer trunk and left at the left-luggage counter of a Greyhound bus station in some other city until someone discovered the miscreant and delivered him back home. Spilling your milk at the dinner table, for example, might incur San Jose. Making a sudden movement causing the cat to scramble across the Persian rug and claw its way up the curtains causing Father to look up from his newspaper and frown, for example, usually incurred Lodi, although Father and The Progenetrix would get into terrible disagreements over this, she preferring Fresno in such cases due to the inconvenience of getting steamer trunks to the Greyhound depot in Lodi. More serious infractions would incur cities farther away and grottier. My little brother once failed to stifle a snigger when my sister emitted a flatus at the dinner table and incurred Trenton, New Jersey. By the time he found his way back home his voice had changed and, but for the steamer trunk, we would scarcely have recognized him.
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