A couple of weeks ago a hint from Heloise sent me right back to the summers of my youth. The hint was stupid as all get out, but it did serve to launch my thoughts back to the fun days.
The Heloise contributor offered what she considered a great way to save money while grocery shopping. -- Ready for it? – She suggested that moms leave their kids at home. If you bring your kids shopping with you, they will beg for stuff and you’ll have to buy it. That makes the experience more costly.
The moment that ingenious advice got around, parents everywhere were stirred from their sleep-of-the-simple. Instantly they became aware of the advantage of leaving their kids at home while shopping. I’m just glad my Mom was not alive to read that. I fear she would’ve slapped the closest person to her.
During the summer, Mom always took us with her grocery shopping. She just didn’t let us get out of the car. I assure you that her reasoning had nothing to do with saving money. – “Mom, could we have some Twinkies? Pleeeease!” – Whop!
I know it’s going to sound like Mom was cruel, but truth is she didn’t let us go inside the grocery store with her, ‘cause our presence was not appreciated. That was back when five of us were still at home.
Fortunately for everyone, Susan was old enough to stay home by herself. We just weren’t always trusted to stay with her. Turns out, our older sister had less patience with us than Mom did, and Mom had just slightly more than the minimum daily requirement.
And, speaking of careless, mom overlooked so many important things in our rearing. As I remember, she never once told us to be sure to keep the car windows down while she was shopping. There is no question that we would’ve died had we closed the windows, but she never warned us of that possibility.
Could it be that she trusted us not to do something that stupid? She never told Dennis and I not to shoot each other with our BB guns. Never warned us not to run with a 16 penny nail in our mouth.
She either had a great deal of faith in us or she feared the power of suggestion. Had she mentioned rolling the windows up, I’m pretty sure we would’ve done it. Dennis would’ve said, “Hey, let’s see how long we can stay in here with the windows up. First one who passes out is a rotten egg.” A “rotten egg” was about as bad a name-calling as we could imagine.
Don’t shoot at Mark with the BB gun? Hmmm. – “New game! Let’s see which one of us can make it to the gate before the other can cock the BB gun and shoot him.” We would’ve never thought of that on our own.
Come to think of it, Mom seldom warned us about anything. We pretty much learned the dos and don’ts from spankings. She might come back to the car from shopping and notice a tear in the upholstery. A couple of minutes after getting home we’d all catch onto the rule concerning pulling a loose thread from the upholstery.
There was absolutely no use in reminding Mom that we had not been warned about juggling apples in the house. She might’ve warned us had she not over exaggerated our ability to reason. She did that a lot in the summer.
Of course, even when you’re a dumb little kid, you still possess somewhat of a moral scale. There is just something inside that encourages you to test the scale’s limits. I think Charles Dickens expressed it best when he wrote -- “It was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity.” – I’m fairly sure that has nothing to do with what I was talking about, but I do like the word “incredulity.” You can almost feel your I.Q. increase a point or two just from saying it. Incredulity.
And, speaking of incredulity, a couple of you are wondering how this Heloise business has anything thing to do with reminding me of the summer. Well, it’s all tied to the fact that during school, Mom didn’t have to take us to town with her, ‘cause we weren’t home. We were in school. Get it? We would’ve loved to have her pick us up so we could go shopping with her, but for whatever reason, she never thought to do that.
It was always in the summer that things got turned all upside down for Mom. It was the season when we were home all day, and had to be dealt with. I think Charles Dickens said it best when he wrote -- It was the season of hope, it was the season of despair.
He wrote something like that. He must’ve been a mom. And, yes, that somewhat stretches the boundary of credulity. – Such a cool word.
End
Mark@rooftopwriter.com
No comments:
Post a Comment