MOTHER'S LITTLE YELPER

Whenever Mama Bore introduces me to someone, her phrasing is typically, “This is my Nancy Beth, my middle child” and I chime in with an addendum: “That’s maladjusted middle child.” She never corrects me on that one. I’m not proud of it, but it’s true. Of her five kids, I won the title of Number One Brat, hands down.

I was too young to act grown up like Big Sis and Beans and too old to act like the babies who were eight and nine years younger than I. It didn’t help that the older sibs were nitpicky neat freaks and the little ones were gosh-darn adorable. “Oh, look at Little Jon smearing his face with chocolate frosting! Isn’t he cute?”

Mom probably disciplined me more than the other four put together, and rightly so. I just never knew when to shut up. The mouth raged on and on and on. When I got too old for paddlings, she started using threats with me, like: “You’re going to drive me crazy, and when I’m sent off to Osawatomie (the mental hospital upstate) you’ll have to go live with your father!” or: “Arthur Anderson (the school principal who worked across the street from our house) is going to hear you and call the police!” My standard response to the latter threat was to throw open the window and yell, “Do you hear me, Arthur? Call the cops!!!”

I always thought I was the prototype for the following ditty:

There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead
And when she was good
She was very good indeed
And when she was bad
She was horrid

But, eventually Mama Bore got wise. When I was around 14, she finally got the better of me. I was having another rant about something…I can’t remember what…she probably wouldn’t let me go out with my friends until I cleaned the landfill of dirty clothes from underneath my bed. Anyway, I was in my room hollering, when she calmly walked in and dumped a large glass of ice water over my head and said, “Here. Cool off.” She smiled and walked back to the kitchen, leaving me drenched.

I was dumbfounded….and very wet and stupid looking. She was a genius. Ever since that defining moment in my life, I was a changed child. I highly recommend the ice water method of behavior modification for all parents. It’s totally effective--cheaper than hiring a child psychologist and safer than a spanking. The only bruises left are to the ego!