#RagtagDailyPrompt

My Sister Laid an Egg and I Get Blamed For It

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RDP Saturday: EGGS

When my little sister was in kindergarten she came home from school one day announced she had homework. She said she had to learn a song for music day and after dinner we went out to the living room and my dad actually turned off the tv- you have to understand something.

This was an American household in the early 1970’s- the tv was God. It was never turned off and silenced.

Anyway my sister stood in the middle of the living room and when she had our attention she sang:

 

Oh I had a little chickie and it wouldn’t lay an egg

so I poured hot water up and down it’s leg

Oh the little chickie hollered and the little chickie begged

and the little chickie laid a hard boiled egg.

 

My brother who was sitting next to me started to laugh.

My parents looked at each other and then they looked at my sister and then my Dad said to me, ” Did you teach her that song?”

” No. She learned it in school. You heard her. ”

” Go to your room and don’t you ever pull a stunt like that again. ”

I was used to getting nailed for doing stupid things and saying stupid things but this wasn’t one of them. Plus  I thought the song was horrifying.  I liked animals and  I never would have made one up where some poor chickie gets scalded with hot water.

Believe it or not, I had been scalded in a kitchen mishap  a few years before when I was five years old and I knew it was nothing to sing about.

I stomped off to my room and my parents tried to get my sister to sing the real song she was supposed to learn and she insisted that was the real song so to humor her they listened to her sing it like a dozen times.

When she was done my Dad showed up in my room and grounded me for being a ‘smart ass’ and on his way out he slammed the door.

I heard Mom call one of her friends and ask about the chickie song and she found out that it was the real deal.

I waited for a few minutes and I called out, “am I still on restriction? ”

My Dad said no and when I walked out of my room and looked at him I kind of smirked, he pointed at my room and I walked back in- where I sang the chickie song until my  voice was gone.

Hideaway Hill’s Folly

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RDP Monday: FOLLY

Sometimes it’s not the house or building that’s the folly. Sometimes it is what  inside of it that is-

Blue Room – Linden Frederick

 

My house

had  bright green trim

and the gutters always leaked.

 

There was an apple tree in the front yard

and cherry trees in the back yard and a holly tree

at the bottom of the yard with my initials carved into the trunk.

 

My house fit into our street

much better then I  ever did

there was nothing about me that was like anyone else

I was built wrong, colored wrong, I was damaged and worn and chipped

and when I moved away, I’m sure my house was very relived.

 

I think it  feels like a real home now but I’ll bet the gutters still leak.

The Devil Made Me Do It

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RDP Sunday: Jocularity

I’m reading the book Marrying Off Mother by Gerald Durrell- just to let you know right off the bat this isn’t a book review. Besides I’m only half way through it.

What I wanted to share was the reaction I had to one of the stories called ” Retirement ”

“Retirement”  is a story about a Ship’s Captain who dies mid journey. Not only does he die mid journey he dies at a party celebrating the ” Crossing of The Line ” in a room full of passengers who have grown very fond of the  Captain.

I did not laugh at that, though I did feel this sort of itch between my shoulder blades that I always get when I know I’m about to laugh at an inappropriate moment. That’s been an issue with me since I was a kid. My Nan told me it was the Devil jabbing me with his Pitch Fork to make me misbehave and she is probably right.

Anyway, it gets worse.

Wanting  to respectfully care for  the Captain ( who I can’t stress enough was a good person in the story and every one really respected and liked him ) he was cleaned up, dressed and left in his cabin.

For a few days. At room temperature.

As nature had begun taking it’s course right after the Captain died, it didn’t take long before a smell began to work it’s way out of his cabin so he was moved to the cargo hold where it was cold.

I’m not sure how it happened, but at some point the Captain’s knees drew  up to his chest and as no one had been checking on him he froze that way. Just before they docked his situation was discovered by a crew member and  they panicked.

You see, they had to get him into a coffin and in that state it was impossible.

So they broke his legs.

I’m not sure how that was done. I can only imagine how they actually straightened the frozen limbs of a corpse but maybe that was a bridge to far for the person telling the story. A Hammer makes for drama, a saw takes the entire story into another territory.

After I read that story I felt that poke between my shoulder blades.

I didn’t know if I should laugh or gasp in horror.

The jab turned into a poke…poke…poke …jab…jab.

I laughed.

I laughed ut loud on  a morning commuter train and when a few of the passengers around me turned around and stared at me with annoyance, that jab turned into a poke and that poke turned into a push and I held my book up and said the first thing that popped into my brain.

” Porn. It’s crazy stuff, am I right? ”

Poca Brisa

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RDP Wednesday: Invisible

Photo A.M. Moscoso

This is just a little story about an early Summer day- it was really hot that day-  I remember the sky was blue and the Sun was blazing and me and my dogs and my Sister and her daughter, who was just over a year old were in the backyard eating popsicles.

We were talking about other Summers and other hot days when at one point the wind picked up a little.

It was just a little breeze and it  wasn’t enough to chase the heat away.

Just then my niece, who was in her stroller, looked up into the sky and started to laugh.

She dropped her popsicle, which of course one of my dogs grabbed, and she kept on laughing. She looked up and her little head went from left to right and then she tried to turn around in her stroller  for,  I guessed,  a better view.

But of what?

She started to  kick her feet and she reached up like she was going to catch something and then she laughed some more.

” What’s she looking at? ” I asked my sister. I couldn’t see anything, and I figured it was her baby so maybe she knew.

My sister snuck a peek up into the empty, blue sky and said. ” I don’t see anything. ”

Just then our Mom walked out and handed my niece a little bowl with popsicle bits in it and she said as she walked back into the house ” She’s looking at Sprits.”

There was something so matter of fact in our Mom’s voice that we couldn’t joke or laugh or make light of  what she had just said.

I looked up. My Sister looked up. My niece looked up and laughed.

It was a blazing hot Summer day and the little breeze that picked up and blew over our heads wasn’t enough to chase the heat away.

But there was a chill to the air.