Throwing in the Towel…

Going to my Aunt Karen’s house on the weekends was a family tradition.  It’s one of my favourite memories of when I was a kid.  My Aunt was like the rich aunt on my dad’s side, at least that’s what I remember growing up.  My aunt and uncle lived in this really unique house outside of the city limits aka “the country”.  Their house was far, like fucking far, far and I couldn’t tell time so I had to use landmarks to know when we were getting close to their place.  I still feel the excitement when I think about it. I had three cousins I was going to play with and well, by default I thought they were rich too.  Me and cousin Teresa were the closest so we played together a lot.  Teresa being the adventurous one always had me eating some random plant in the wooded areas that we played in, she knew which ones you could eat and which ones you shouldn’t eat…well that’s what she use to fucking tell me anyways.  I didn’t have much in the way of “life experiences” so I believed every word that came out of her mouth…I never got sick from the plants we ate, come to think of it…I think she started veganism before there was veganism.

We were out playing in the mud this one day, holy fuck we were muddy and dirty and we surely were going to get in trouble.  Let me set the stage a bit here…we both had parents that would whoop our asses with the belt at any given time for any given thing…anything…petty shit.  I was scared to death of my parents, my mother particularly to be honest…my dad was a gentle man my mom was the beat your ass kinda mother.  I often wondered if she enjoyed beating the crap out of me for shit that seemed so minor to me back then and really even when I think about the ass whoopins I got when I was a kid, yeah…she did enjoy beating my damn ass…she, no doubt was crazy (RIP MOM). Anyhoo, this day Teresa tells me to go and get us towels so we could clean up before we went back in the house.  I went in the house, opened the beautiful linen closet and grabbed the first two towels I see that looked “fluffy”.  I handed Teresa her towel, she wasn’t paying much attention to the hand-off and starts wiping her arms.  I was getting all of the mud off my arms too….then she starts freaking out on me! 

“Sherry Anne!!!” my cousin yells, “you got mom’s new towels she’s going to kill us” I instantly started seeing my life flash before my eyes, all 8 years of it.  We had to come up with a plan  so “we” didn’t get in trouble.  I wasn’t very good with plans but Teresa was so she got all authoritative and told me “take these back inside and hide them at the bottom of the dirty laundry hamper and don’t tell mom we used them or she’s going to kill YOU because YOU got the towels”.  Holy shit I was some fucking scared I won’t lie because that meant a beating for sure from my mother because I had done something wrong.  Yeah, like I said she liked to give beatings.  I hurried back into the house and put the towels in the hamper. I could hear Aunt Karen yelling “stop running in and out of this house” I was scared.  Back outside I ran and me and Teresa took off into the woods to play some more.  WE surely weren’t going to get in trouble, we were way smarter than our parents.

“Teresaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”, my aunt was yelling her name.  You don’t play around when you’re name is being called so we ran our asses right to the house to get what we thought was supper, yeah we thought it was the “supper call”.  We got inside, we were all out of breath and Auntie says “who used my good towels because Teresa you know very well these are the good towels” apparently I was discombobulated when I put the dirty towels in the hamper that I forgot to put them at the bottom.  I’m looking at my mother and she got that look on her face like…bitch, it better not have been you… which also meant I’m just waiting to beat your ass if it was you.  Teresa tattles her little ass off and tells them it was ME! In her defense, it was either me or her who was going to take a beating but it didn’t have to be both of us….but it also didn’t have to be me either….this meant war!

My mother beckoned me “over here”, holy fuck I was scared and when I say scared I mean scared, scared like I didn’t know if I could endure another beating at the hands of this person kind of scared.  I mean let’s be real when you’re a kid those beatings were like…abusive at times, you could never get away with that shit nowadays.  I had one thing going for me that Teresa didn’t have, I was believable and well…she wasn’t known for always telling the truth.  “Did you use Aunt Karen’s good towels?” Me, “yes”…I mean it made sense to admit I had used the towel “but Teresa gave me the towel”  I added. I decided to put the blame on her for getting the towels….you know the whole deflect the trouble onto someone else scenario, Teresa to be exact.

Teresa is crying and saying “she’s lying” with every crack she got from Aunt Karen.  I mean honestly, she was getting a beating for “getting” a towel to clean our muddy arms off with…why oh why was she getting a beating for this?  “Sherry Anne got the towel” she cried,  My mom threatened me which wasn’t going to get me to confess let’s just say that right now…as if someone is going to confess this deep into the lie, hell NO! Each time Aunt Karen told Teresa to “tell the truth” she did, she said it was me who got the towels but each time she got a beating for “telling the truth”  I swear it seemed like Teresa was getting a beating for 20 hours…and honestly I don’t remember how long it actually was but it was long…my mother was whispering “you better not be lying or I’m going to beat your ass” I was like “I’m not it was Teresa” then this one hit Teresa took must have hurt a whole lot because she looked at me and mouthed “I hate you” and I caved…”It was me” I yelled “it was me”. I couldn’t have my favourite cousin hating me…I just couldn’t.

Aunt Karen felt bad that day for not believing Teresa, I felt bad for lying and watching my cousin get a major ass whooping but nobody felt bad for me for what I was about to endure…Nobody…Fuckin stupid fluffy fuckin towels FFS. ~ Holla