When I was five years old my grandma made me the most beautiful new dress for my birthday. It was bright yellow with what I called sunshines trimmed with red all over it. My mother told me I could not wear the dress until we went to my grandma’s house the following week.
I kept looking at my new dress that was hanging in the closet and wishing that I could just try it on. I just knew it wouldn’t hurt anything if I just tried it on for a little while.
So , of course, I did just that. Oh I can remember how pretty I looked.
My sister was eleven years older than I and we shared a room. On her dresser was an array of multi-colored bottles of fingernail polish. I had been told many times that I was not to touch that either. Life seemed to me too full of rules.
My new dress and it’s pretty sunshines and one bottle of fingernail polish looked so pretty together. I thought, “what could it hurt if I just put a little bit of polish on my nails?” That would be perfect. As I opened the bottle of polish it tipped upside down and ran all the way down the front of my new dress. I was terrified of what my mother and sister would do and say and I was so sad that I would not be able to wear my dress for my birthday.
I sneaked down the stairs and ran outside. I thought I had made a clean get away when I heard my mom yell at me not to run away. I can remember her words perfectly. She said, “You will have to come back, young lady, and you will get a spanking for disobeying me.” I had never had a spanking but I imagined that it was not a good thing.
I stayed out in the yard for a long time, but finally came back to the house. The “talking to” that I got was much worse than the little spanking that came afterwards. That has been sixty years ago and the memory is vivid to this day.
This was great. I remember this story, but I read it aloud (and your story blog) to the whole family at lunch. What a blessing your writing is!!
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