Grandma Black made me so mad!!

10/12/03 11:56 AM

My house really suffers now that we no longer have the white tea towels with a day of the week embroidered on them. How do we know what we’re supposed to do, if we don’t what day of the week we’re supposed to do it on? And the panties … days of the week embroidered on them, too? I wonder what happened if one wore say, Tuesdays panties on Friday or something like that? Did they bunch up? Did they refuse to stay up? I don’t know. I was raised to fear God, I did what I was told or, in this case, always wore the day of the week panty on the day that was embroidered on them.

Let’s see … if I remember right, Mondays were always washday; Tuesday was for ironing; one day was for baking, one for mending, etc. I do know that Saturday was the day (at Grandma Black’s house) that we dusted, swept the stairs (be careful when you get to the third from the top because there was a crack on it and you had to put a paper down or the dirt/dust would get onto Grandma’s clothes in the closet below), polished the furniture (with this red oil) and washed those dreaded mop boards All before noon!

Then came the reward … Grandma would give me fifty cents to go down to Hank’s Market and get us each a pint of sherbet. Mine was always orange, I think hers was lime.

One Saturday I got real mad at her over something and I was just boiling. I had something to say to her and knew better, but it just kept boiling and boiling. She knew something was up, so when it came time to go to town for the sherbet, she decided to walk down with me. We did not speak all the way down, but my mind was going a mile a minute and I was trying my darnedest to get up enough nerve to do what I had to do. I needed to do it before we got uptown in front of other people so as we started across the street at St. Mary’s Hall I did it.

I mustered up all my strength, took a deep breath and said, "Grandma, sometimes you just make me sick!" There, I did it! It felt good! I had put her in her place. Let her know just how unhappy I was about whatever I thought I was unhappy about. In all her wisdom she just said, "Well Barbie, sometimes you just make me sick, too" and we just kept on walking. I was absolutely devastated. How could SHE say that to ME??!!?? I was her precious little Barbie! I thought she loved me!

I’m sure there was a lesson to be learned there and I’m also very sure that I learned it.