Well, there isn’t really Milk Out My Nose Part I, but I posted yesterday about that very subject called Writing From Childhood Memories. There are just a few more things from my childhood that are socially horrifying enough to mention.
My mom loves me. Why she chose to tortured me to show it, I’m not sure. First thing in the morning, she would run around the kitchen with a spoonful of Cod Liver Oil. The smell was putrid; the taste was even worse. My brother and I would take turns diverting her and hiding. She was tenacious. No Quisp or Quake (our favorite cereals) until you take it, she’d say. Eventually, she would crawl under the kitchen table and shove a spoonful in our clam shell tight mouths.
At noon, my next door neighbor often called across the fence and asked me to go swimming. They had the nicest pool in the neighborhood. OK. It was the only pool in the neighborhood.
“Mom, can I go swimming?”
“After lunch”
I would hurry to eat lunch, throw on my bathing suit, and grab a towel.
“Wait. I need to put vinegar in your ears.”
Oh no. Not the vinegar. She grabbed the Acme red wine vinegar and proceeded to put a teaspoonful in each ear. None of the other kids had to do it. It wasn’t required to go to that pool. She just loved me enough to not let me get swimmers ear. Great, thanks. I put on my $.99 flip flops and ran out the door.
“Wait an hour before you go in the pool so your food can digest.”
Oh brother. So by 1 o’clock, I sit by the side of the pool watching my friends swim smelling like a pickled herring. All I needed was some nose plugs made with limburger cheese and I would be set.
By the end of a long day of playing outside, my mom would make me get a bath. That doesn’t sound so horrifying. She would grab a handful of Dash laundry detergent, throw it in the tub with 2 inches of water and usher me in. Bubbles? Just swish you hands around. There. Look. 3.
I crawled in bed smelling like freshly laundered sheets and thankful that I was wash and wear. No ironing required.
Did your mother traumatize you in similar loving ways? Share your thoughts. I’m always up for a laugh.
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