The Aim to Please...Kinda

Before my grandparents had a bathroom, all the cleaning up was done at the washstand in one corner of their kitchen.  A white enamel basin and pitcher left permanent water marks after years of use by family and farmhands.  Sometimes the men in our family stood discussing work in the fields as they washed the last sleep from their eyes. 

One morning, awaiting my turn at the washstand, I looked up at my uncle with all my 6 year old innocence and said with pride, “Uncle Herbert, I’m going to buy a gun.”   

“Mary, don’t say that!  Little girls don’t talk like that!”  I should have known better.  He usually didn’t agree with my ideas.  Uncle Herbert was by far NOT my favorite uncle.  In fact, he held the record for being a prized patriarchal prig.   

Uncle Herbert was also the proverbial unmarried expert on child rearing.  He would go so far as to correct my mother when she scolded me--“his correction” meaning she should be tougher.  Yet with all our mutual dis-attraction for one another, he wielded a lot of power in the family, so I definitely wanted him on my side.  My attempts most often backfired.  But perhaps if I could just explain to him this time….

“O, Uncle Herbert, I’m not going to shoot you!”  He just might have some not entirely unjustified concerns for his safety.

“Mary, I said not to say that.”  I felt a burr in my underpants.  Why didn’t he want me to buy a gun?  He had a whole bunch of them!  He loved guns!  Why shouldn’t I have just one?  He wasn’t my dad!  He can’t boss me! 

Undeterred, I said again with even more determination “Uncle Herbert, I’m going to buy a gun!” 

“Mary, if you say that one more time, I’m going to wash your mouth out with soap!”  I’m a fast runner--I’ll have the last word this time!

Breathlessly I spoke the words:  “Uncle Herbert, I’m going to buy a gun!”  then raced for the screen door.  As fast as my short legs would take me, I ran across the yard and down the path to the woods.  I was beginning to feel safe when a hand grabbed me by the shoulder.  Another came around my head—and as I opened my mouth to scream, a bar of 99 and 44/100^th % pure Ivory soap hit my taste buds!   Wiggle, squirm and pull—I used any and every attempt to rid myself of this horrible man!  At my last yank, I pulled away—probably because he’d finally let go.   I ran spitting until I finally reached the protection of my hiding place—deep in the ravine among the grapevines.  By now I was crying—not just because of the soap, which was awful enough, and not because I wouldn’t be buying a gun—which I never wanted in the first place.  My tears spoke of failure--he'd won again!  

My uncle died many years ago.  We never became close even after I reached adulthood.  And to this day I don't buy Ivory soap....