guilt

Bumps in the Road Part 10

Heat monkeys danced on the blacktop ahead of the bus bumping its way toward Box Elder. Kathleen avoided a plate-sized puddle of melted tar as she stepped off the bus. She didn’t want that on her new white sandals. Despite her care, they were dusty soon enough. The boarding house was a good quarter mile from the main highway. Cotton grew on both sides, as far as she could. The heat and humidity in East Texas were palpable by early July. She wished she’d gotten back earlier. She peeked in on Mrs. Martin and found her headed to her room for a nap. “Honey, if you want some lunch there’s egg salad and fried pies left from the men’s lunches. I’m gonna hang this sweaty dress in the doorway to air while the men are out and try to catch a little nap, but they ain’t a breath of a breeze.”

“Oh no, I’m not hungry, but I thought I’d take a quick bath before the men get back from work, if that’s okay,” Kathleen told her.

“Sure, just be sure to hang your towel and washcloth on the rack in your room. You know y’all don’t get but two towels and two washcloths a week. I don’t wash except on Mondays.”.

‘Yes, ma’am. I will.” Kathleen replied, taking herself off to get her linens and toiletries. After locking the door, she gave the tub a good scrubbing with BAB-O,  aware of the grimy men who also bathed there. Rinsing it smooth, she drew a tepid bath. Wrapping her hair in her towel, she slid into the relaxing bath.  Though she’d like to have soaked awhile, she quickly bathed and shaved her legs before she emptying and scrubbing the tub again with BAB-O.  She powdered and lotioned herself before rinsing her washcloth and towel to take back to her room.  Latching her door, she hung her dress to air and slid under the top sheet.  Maybe she’d be able to nap a while.  No such luck.  She thought of Mama and Daddy and felt a hollow feeling in  her gut. They were probably resting before going back out to the garden to pick tomatoes.  She dreaded telling them she’d gotten married with our their blessing, but they’d surely understand when they met Bill.  He was so charming and had such a way with people.  He was going to work construction and they’d  travel all over the country.  That was one of the things that made her fall in love with him.  For a girl raised in hicky old Cuthand, it sounded like a dream.  Having never been farther than Texarkana, she’d always yearned to escape. Bill was talking about going to California after this job. It couldn’t be soon enough for her.

Boarding House

  Sn

Laugh Your Way With the Best Guilt Joke of the Day


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'What are these for? You only bring me flowers when you've done something good.'

‘What are these for? You only bring me flowers when you’ve done something good.’

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'Son, your mother and I don't even recognize you anymore. You've become some sort of twisted animal.'

‘Son, your mother and I don’t even recognize you anymore. You’ve become some sort of twisted animal.’

Dear Darling Son and That Person You Married,
I hope you are well. Please don’t worry about me. I’m just fine considering I can’t breathe or eat. The important thing is that you have a nice holiday, thousands of miles away from your ailing mother. I’ve sent along my last ten dollars in this card, which I hope you’ll spend on my beautiful grandchildren, who I never see. God knows their mother never buys them anything nice. They look anemic in their pictures, poor, thin babies.
Thank you so much for the birthday flowers, dear boy. I put them in the freezer so they’ll stay fresh for my grave.  I know I’ll need them any day.  Which reminds me — we buried Aunt Lucy last week. I know she died years ago, but I got to yearning for a good funeral, so Aunt Minnie and I dug her up and had the services all over again. I would have invited you, but I know that woman you live with would have never let you come. I bet she’s never even watched that videotape of my hemorrhoid surgery, has she? I am still suffering.
Well son, it’s time for me to drag myself to bed now. I lost my cane beating off muggers last week, but don’t you worry about me. I’m also getting used to the cold since they turned my heat off and am grateful because the frost on my bed numbs the constant pain. Now don’t you even think about sending any more money, because I know you need it for those expensive family holidays you take every year, though you never come see me. Give my love to my darling grand-babies and my regards to whatever-her-name-is — the one with the black roots who stole you screaming from my bosom.
Love Always, Your poor, old mother

The Boogerman’ll Get You By the Hair of Your Head!

shamMother and I natter on incessantly.  Yesterday we went to visit my aunt a couple of hours away.  As we rode along, I was asking Mother more about the details of her early marriage at eighteen.  She slipped up and confessed a tale she’s felt guilty about ever since.  I couldn’t believe she stumbled and told on herself after sixty-nine years.  She usually bumbles right away.  To set the stage, you have to know she has a ridiculous conscience.  If she suspects there is a rule somewhere, she is obligated to follow it, no matter how senseless.  If she fails, she is required to feel guilty.  That’s the rule.

Mother, married at eighteen.  Within months Daddy moved her into the house with his widowed mother and her two daughters.  They were poor and lived in a decrepit unpainted house miles out in the country, not the newlywed home she’d envisioned.  To put the icing on the ruined cake, Aunt Julie with her two squalling brats had settled in as well.  The house was uncomfortable, Mother felt unwelcome, Daddy was never home except to sleep.

The kids, two and four, whined without ceasing, unless they took a break to throw a fit.  One day, she was alone in the room with them and was totally fed up with the whining.  She told Yvonne, the oldest, “Stop that squalling or the Boogerman will get you!”  To reinforce the lesson, she stepped into the next room, scratched on the door-facing and wailed “Wooooooooo!”  The terrified kids shut up immediately.”  From then on, when the whining started, she’d give them another little dose of Wooooo, if she got the chance when Aunt Julie wasn’t in the room.

“Why didn’t I ever hear this great story before?” I had to know.

“Because I felt guilty, I guess. I didn’t mean to tell it now.  I’m still ashamed,” she confessed.

“Well, you should be.  I am sixty-five years old and I could have been enjoying this story my whole life!”

Post Partum Depression

Kate and JohnWhen my first child was born, I suffered from Post Partum Depression.  I had expected to welcome him joyfully into my life, but I was so depressed, I wasn’t able to do that.  I cared for Continue reading →

Killer Tomatoes (Tales from the Toilet)

imageA well-worn path led down the hill to the toilet located far enough to cut the odor and avoid contamination of our well.  Mama was vigilant about sanitation and shoveled lime into the pit to aid decomposition and screened the open back to foil her chickens who considered the flies and maggots a tempting buffet.  Chickens are not known for their Continue reading →

God, Don’t Let Bessie Die! (1930s Memoir)

Daddy came in to supper, worried to death.  Bessie, our cow had had a calf and had “got down.”  This was a catastrophe. “Getting down” meant certain death for the cow and a disaster for us. “Oh, Lord!  What in the world will we do?  We’ve got to have milk for the kids.  And we’ll lose the calf, too.”  Mama was calm, not panicking, so, I knew this was Continue reading →

Killer Tomatoes

Mama kept me close her side when we were home alone. If she did let me go in the yard on my own, I had to be close enough to come running in an instant when she called. The only exception was a trip to the toilet.  Since it wasn’t polite to answer from the toilet, I kept quiet knowing, she’d be watching for me to come out before mounting a search.  She Continue reading →