Snakes in the Outhouse

Today’s story for my on-line memoir is one that amuses me. It shows just how trusting and naïve I was at age seven. Adults and children also were always pulling practical jokes on me because I could be duped so easily. This particular story is about an outhouse joke.

         When Grandpa Ready died in March 1943, he had completed much of the work on the retirement home he planned for himself and Grandma Ready. She offered the house, which still needed plastering, painting, window framing, flooring, electrical work, to my family for $25 a month rental.

         For the next two months, while I finished first grade at Courtney School, Dad worked in the evenings on the house. He plastered and painted the walls and completed the flooring in every room but the kitchen.

         Dad lived there until his death in 1975. I lived there until 1954, when I went away to college at Mount Saint Scholastica in Atchison, Kansas. I came home only for the summers, and then left for good in 1958 when I entered the Benedictine convent in Atchison.

         Dad never completed the house. No painting of the shingled one-story house, no window framing on the inside, no finished flooring in the kitchen. And no indoor plumbing until after I was in the convent and the city brought water out into the countryside. Every few months, a truck arrived at our home, carrying a supply of water to fill our well.

         Without running water, of course, we had no indoor bathroom and so used a slop bucket, which my brother emptied each morning through the hole in the outhouse seat. It’s that outhouse that Grandma Ready picked as a subject for teasing.

         “Dolores,” she said. “Be careful when you use the outhouse.”

         “Why, Grandma?”

         “Snakes live in the muck. They wait until they see a person’s bottom on that seat. Then they jump up and bite you!”

         I shivered at the thought.

         “They’re poisonous.”

         “You mean they can kill me?”

         She walked to the outhouse with me, opened the door, and pointed to the hole. “They’re hiding down there. Waiting to leap up and bite your butt. They’ll kill you lickety-split and you’ll fall into the muck.”

         From that day forward, I never sat on the hole. I’d put my hands on each side of me to support myself as I held my bottom up above the hole. I figured that if I were three inches above the hole, the snakes couldn’t reach me. They were able, I thought, to jump just to the edge of the hole. That far; no farther.

         Three inches assured no poison. But I was doomed if I sat on the hole.

         Until I was nearly eleven, I continued to do this. The story always rang true to me. Then one day Mom opened the outhouse door, not knowing I was inside. She apologized and then, noticing my position, said, “Dolores, what are you doing? Why are you holding yourself like that? Why aren’t you sitting on the seat?”

         I explained about what Grandma had told me. “Mom, it’s not safe to sit,” I said. “I hope you don’t sit. You’ve got to be three inches higher. The snakes can’t jump that far.”

         “On, Dolores,” Mom moaned. “Your grandma was just joshing with you.”

         “She meant it, Mom.”

         “Believe me. If there ever were any snakes inside there, they’re long since dead.”

         “Really?”

         “Really.”

         From then on, I sat on the outhouse seat. Much more comfortable, believe me. And Grandma? She said, “Really fooled you, didn’t I?”

         Yes.

         

Making Heaven Interesting

For me, fear and desperate planning filled the first three months of Grade 5. I had to somehow avoid Mr. Jackson’s groping hand when he drove me and his sons and daughter and my little brother to and from school. Grade 6, however, went well. No trauma that I can remember except for Dad’s drinking and the loud arguments between him and Mom. I kept hiding the hammer, axe, and knives for fear that during one of those drunken arguments he’d try to kill her again.

         In fact, I remember the fall months of 1947 with enjoyment for it was then that I first studied ancient history. One November day, while reading about the Grecian city-state of Thebes, I had a déjà vu moment and roamed the streets leading up to its ancient citadel. The present merged with the past and I became Theban. That experience led me to visit Greece in 1993 and work on a Bronze-Age-Greece novel.  

  

    Remains of Cadmea, the central fortress of ancient Thebes.

         The other vivid memory I have of Grade 6 concerns heaven. Over and over in religion class Sister Mary McCauley talked about the afterlife.    

      Dante and Beatrice gaze at the highest heavens.

         “What will we do in heaven,” I asked one day.

         “Why, Dolores, you’ll praise God for all His glory and beauty and goodness. You’ll sing, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts. Heaven and Earth are filled with your glory!”

         “That’s it?”

         “Yes. Isn’t it glorious?”

         Clearly, she thought so.

         I didn’t.

         The truth was that hell, despite its flames, sounded much more interesting. No mealy-mouthed humans there.

Medieval illustration of Hell 

in the Hortus deliciarum manuscript

of Herrad of Landsberg—about 1180.

         So I thought. And thought. And thought some more about how to make heaven appealing. After alighting from the school bus one afternoon, I ran up the rutted driveway, into the unpainted house, and called out, “Mom!”

         “I’m here. In the kitchen.”

         Dumping my books on the divan, I hurried to the kitchen where Mom stood at the range, stirring a steaming pot of macaroni. 

         “Mom!” I shouted. “You know how heaven being boring bothers me?”

         “Yes.”

         “God seems so conceited. All He wants is to be praised all the time. And it just goes on and on and on with no ending. It scares me. Everything ends. What’s the end of heaven?”

         “It’s the end of life I know about, Dolores. We die and we’re with God.”

         “But just saying, ‘Holy, Holy,’ all the time gets monotonous. I’d like talking with people.” I paused and then confided that God simply wasn’t enough for all eternity.

         “He’s pretty wonderful,” she said.

         “Well, if dead people have been telling Him that since the Neanderthals”—we’d started our study of ancient history with them that year—“then He must be sort of tired of it all by now. Wouldn’t you think so?”

         “Possibly.”

         “So here’s my idea! When I get to heaven I’m going to ask God—as a favor—if He’d show me a movie of every person who’s ever lived—even those babies in Limbo. Going all the way back to the Neanderthals.”

         “Sounds interesting.”

         “Yes," I agreed enthusiastically. "And that’s not all. I’ll ask to see not only the people but also what they thought and what they said and what they dreamed about! And I’ll see and hear their conversations when they were alive. I’ll watch their whole lives! The life of every person!”

         As Mom drained the macaroni, she summed it up. “So you’re going to see a long movie?”

         “The longest ever, Mom. It’ll go on and on because people keep dying and I’d keep seeing movies of their lives. Maybe God will even give me popcorn! Buttered!”

         I went to bed content that night. An eternity of stories . . . and buttered popcorn.        

All photographs are from Wikipedia.

         

Fran Fischer's "Fishducky's Fables"

Hello all, on this, the first day of May 2013. Thank you for all your comments and e-mails encouraging me to take time off and “go with the flow” of the barometer. The temperature was 84° F here yesterday. Today’s prediction is for 74° with rain showers and thunderstorms. Then the temperature dramatically drops to 49° with rain forecast for the next five days. Of course, an erratic barometer will accompany all these temperature changes.

         But enough of this shilly-shallying over barometric changes. I’ve sat on the sidelines, nursing an aching brain, for three weeks now and its time to stand up, do my world-famous shimmy, and shout, “Enough already! I’m reentering the fray!”

         In truth, I really began this reentry on Monday when I visited several of you on your blogs and left comments. For me that was the day I yawned, stretched widely, and decided to say “Phooey!” to headaches and "Yes!" to posting again.

         So, to begin my blog anew, I’m reviewing today a delightful book of humor for all of us who still remember the wonder of our childhood reading of fairy tales and fables.
          The cover of Fishducky’s Fables by Fran Fischer hints at the merriment within. Be warned that if you read this entertaining entry into the humor genre, you may have to relinquish some cherished beliefs about fairy tales. What you learned as a child simply wasn’t true!

         In Fischer’s book, we chuckle over fractured fairy tales like Rapunzel. We guffaw as the author shares with us the reasons for why zebras zig, leopards spot, and kangaroos accessorize with a pouch. These how-did stories are amazingly original. In addition, Fischer weaves tongue-in-cheek magic as she spinningly retells myths about Greek gods, goddesses, and other important people.

         The book closes with two amusingly outlandish stories about Dorian Gray and Frankenstein and a number of nursery rhymes, each ending with a twist that left me grinning at Fischer’s humorous take on all of life.         

         I was drawn to this book because of all the enjoyment I’ve had in reading Fischer’s blog: Fishducky, finally. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for months I’ve depended on her postings to lighten my day with laughter.

         And yet, I seldom read humorous books or books on humor. Several years ago, I did read—and truly enjoyed—the P. G. Wodehouse series featuring Bertie Wooster and his long-suffering manservant, Jeeves.

         And I’ve been a fan of many comedians from radio, television, and Saturday Night Live, among them, Jack Benny, Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Flip Wilson, Carol Burnett, Dana Carvey, Lily Tomlin, Jackie Gleason, Billy Crystal, Bob Newhart, Bill Cosby, Tim Conway, Jonathan Winters, Red Skelton, Ernie Kovacs, Dick Gregory, Gilda Radner, Victor Borge, Ellen DeGeneres, Louie Armstrong, and Robin Williams.

         So while I’ve never really read humorous books, I’ve enjoyed many comedians. And now I count Fischer among them. She has a true sense of the ridiculous. She's the bloggers' standup comic. And in Fishducky’s Fables she'll give you the lowdown on how Jimmy Choo’s shoe company got started and on which princess had a happy marriage because of Breath Right Nasal.

         Fischer had me chuckling when I encountered the last line of the King Midas story. She amazed me with her inventiveness in the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale. And she surprised me with the name of the television show on which Thumbelina appeared.

         And speaking of that little girl, according to Fischer when writing about Thumb and her husband, the “word on the street is that they lived reasonably happy ever after.” I’m relieved to know that!

         As well, it’s educational to learn why hares hop instead of run and why elephants have trunks. Not only humorous, but the word charming applies to many of these stories.

         Two of my most treasured childhood books—which sit in pride of place on one of my bookshelves—are Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know, a 1944 gift from my cousin Tommy and Fairy Tales and Stories by Hans Christian Andersen, a Christmas gift from my parents in 1945. Now I have shelved securely on my iPad a third fairy tale book—Fran Fischer’s Fishducky’s Fables. I’m going to post this review and then go to Amazon and Goodreads and give it a five-star review.

         If you delight in originality and seek laughter in your life, you’ll also want to read this book. Enjoy!

"Oh, the Weather Outside Is Frightful"

Spring is never easy for someone with Meniere’s disease. Why? Because many of us have Meniere’s headaches, which are like migraines in intensity but without the sensitivity to light. Many foods, such as chocolate, tomatoes, strawberries, and dairy, can trigger these headaches. But most often the trigger, at least for me, is a precipitous barometric change.

         I live in a part of Missouri that is known as tornado alley and so the weather here is volatile, especially in spring and the bar graph on my barometer bops up and down like a roller coaster. Then come the headaches and I toddle off to bed, chant a mantra, and try to distract myself so that I don’t think about the ache in my brain! Medication can help if I take it soon enough to nip the ache in the bud. But sometimes the headache wins the race and just assumes a life of its own within my brain.

         These headaches keep me from thinking clearly and so reading and responding to blogs become somewhat difficult. Even writing my own postings takes a number of hours just to make some sense out of what is swirling around in my mind. This posting is taking much longer than you would think.

         I haven’t visited your blogs to read and comment in a week. Moreover, the forecasters are predicting many days of rain.

         So once again I’m going to drop out of sight for a few more days. I hope to post on this blog next Wednesday, the 24^th. If all goes well, I will. I won’t be posting on my word-crafting blog this coming Sunday, but hope to return to it on the 28^th.

         I do miss reading your blogs as I find so interesting your lives and stories and this A to Z Challenge with which many of you are engaged.

         I hope all of you are enjoying spring and that those of you who have these headaches, for whatever reason, are able to take some time off and simply rest.

         Peace to you and thank you for all the empathy I know you are feeling for me right now. Blogging has surely opened up my world. Please believe me when I say that I cherish the friendship so many of you extend to me.  

Anklets, Saddle Shoes, and Droplets

Last week you learned that I pee when I laugh too much. This happened a lot in grade school. In fifth grade I began my friendship with the bus driver because of blotches left by pee. He found a way to deal with the problem without embarrassing me.

         In seventh grade I also met gentleness with regard to my peeing. But this time I knew real embarrassment.

         The incident began when Sister Mary McCauley, our seventh grade teacher, asked our class to speak for three minutes about something that interested us.

         One by one we walked resolutely up to the front of the room. The boys mostly talked about wars and westerns. One of them had been to Yellowstone and described Old Faithful. The girls related how she’d learned to play the piano. Several talked about their favorite movie stars. One classmate had seen the Atlantic Ocean and talked about the thunder of its waves.

             

         When my time came, I hurried down the aisle to the front of the room. Already a history buff, I’d chosen to talk about the Liberty Bell that hung in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia.

         The boys knew my weakness because we’d all gone through grade school together. So as soon as I started talking, they crossed their eyes and tried on their most grotesque faces. I started giggling.

         Then it happened: pee trickled down my legs. I tried holding them tightly together, but that only made the boys redouble their efforts.

         More drips and dribbles.

         I stood in a spreading puddle of pee.

         I had to talk for three minutes to get a good grade, so I forged on with facts and dates.

         More seepage.

         The pee wet the tops of my white anklets.

         The puddle kept spreading around my white and brown saddle shoes.

How much pee does a kid’s bladder hold? I wondered.

Finally, I finished and raced down the aisle to my desk. Maybe when I sat down, the pool of pee would magically disappear.

         Sister Mary McCauley’s voice brought me to a halt. “Dolores, there seems to be a wet spot on the floor. Would you please get a rag and wipe it up. I’d appreciate that.”

         The boys guffawed; the girls tittered.  

         I got a rag from the closet, wiped up the puddle, trashed the sodden cloth, and sat down quietly at my desk. Behind me, a classmate who was sweet on me whispered, “I liked your speech best.”

         Well, at least it was the most entertaining. A real show-and-tell.