Mamas Dread They Be Days Like This

It had been a long morning for Mom.  My little sister and I had spent much of it outside in the yard with Grandma’s roasting kettle, an assortment of kitchen utensils and a colander.  At my suggestion, we had been feeding marbles to our dog, Sandra.  I bet her a nickel that the first marble would pass through in under an hour.  


Earlier, I had taken the marbles from our father’s top dresser drawer where he kept his most prized possessions:  a bar of soap that he had earned for being the best-groomed boy in his grammar school class, some coins that I think he got while he was on vacation in the war, a box of weird-shaped water balloons called “Trojans,” and a bag of marbles that he won off a kid who spit in his face and called his little sister a cheap neighborhood Irish slut.  


My sister and I had been out in the yard all morning sifting through Sandra’s poop with the hose and Mom’s utensils, trying to retrieve Dad’s marbles.  We were up to six agates and a doughboy when Mom caught us and made us come inside and take baths.  (Dad found the remaining three when he mowed the lawn the following Saturday.)


When we finished our baths, Mom had lunch ready.  We sat down at the kitchen table as she served us a plate of Armour’s Star Vienna Sausages and a loaf of “Builds Strong Bodies Eight Ways” Wonder bread.  Over our protests that “We want bologna,” Mom started screaming.  


Out of her mouth spewed words that I had never heard before and did not hear again until I met Candi from Polson, Montana when I was a senior in college.  “Eat what I give you, you spoiled little brats.  When I was your age, I had to scratch shit with the chickens.’  


Mom liked chicken.  But she had told us that she almost threw up whenever she had to go out to the henhouse and gather eggs.  I looked at my sister and shook my head.  We both knew Mom had no stomach for scratching shit with the chickens.  She had almost lost her breakfast when she caught us panning for Dad’s marbles.  


Unbeknownst to Mom, one of the Vienna sausages had rolled off the plate and onto the kitchen floor.  As she stomped around on the linoleum floor raging at us, she finally noticed that she had stepped on the sausage.  “WHAT’S THIS???”


I couldn’t resist. “I don’t know, Mom.  Sandra was just there….”


Mom bent over, poked her finger into the mashed sausage and started gagging.  Her gagging echoed down the hallway as she ran to the bathroom.  My sister hollered “Look, Mom, another marble.”  Being the little heathens that we were, we giggled at the sounds we heard coming from the bathroom.  “Don’t worry, Mom.  We’ll clean up Sandra’s dooty,” I yelled as I walked to the refrigerator in search of the bologna.