A Lesson from Mom ©2019

Terrified, I scampered under my parent’s bed. I was about about 7 years old. I wasn’t sure how I had so angered my mother that she ran for the tin can of black pepper, to teach me a lesson… I’d never forget.

I had innocently repeated a word I had heard some tough kid shouting in the playground, to ask her what it meant. This infuriated her like I never remembered in my short life.

Usually when she hollered at me for something I did wrong, I’d run under the bed until she got over it. Then timidly I’d sneak out when I thought she forgot about it what I did… not this time. I had crossed the line because she stripped the double bed, mattress and all, and ran for the wooden broom. My mother poked the wooden handle between the metal springs,(all beds had metal springs in the 1940s), until I was forced out from under the shelter of the bed, and into her grasp. She held me down forcefully, and poured the black pepper into my howling mouth, and it accidently got into my little brown tearing eyes.

I am 74 years old now, but still hesitate fearfully to say the word that caused me and my mother, such distress…”FUCK”.

Today I watch TV, go to the movies, take a walk, or shop the supermarket, I hear “FUCK” and “FUCKIN” this or that, and even “MOTHER-FUCKER” peppered ,(excuse the pun), throughout!

All ages use the word freely it seems…

Momma must be spinning in her grave!