MAE JULIAN
Mom’s Spool Bed
I don’t know about the rest of you, but in our family it was well known, if not specifically stated, what was forbidden territory. Mom’s spool bed was forbidden territory. It’s not that we couldn’t‑lie across it, or touch it, but it was NOT to be defiled!‑ (and you all know what I mean!).‑ Of course, in my mother’s mind we were all perfect and would not defile anything, but just to make sure, the spool bed was off limits.
One day, she was gone for the day. I don’t remember where she was, but she seldom left for long. All of us kids got a brainstorm. Well, I should say SOME of us kids got a brainstorm. Obviously the “victim” was not in on it.‑ My youngest brother was enchanted with a beautiful girl named Mimi. Oh, my, but she was his heart and soul and, being of untested manly experiences, he was ever so innocent. I do not know which of us thought up this dastardly deed, and indeed, if I knew, we have all been sworn to silence for so many years, that it is‑buried,‑if not‑forgotten. Well, anyway, (I am prone to ramble), while Mom was gone, we devised the most wonderful stupendous plan. We got some teeny tiny bikini panties and in black marker wrote “To Mimi” on the front of the panties, and on the back we crudely wrote, in block letters, my youngest brother’s name. We were laughing so hard we could hardly believe our genius. It was suggested by one of us that we shouldn’t just plant them in Mom’s bed, but in order to make it appear more authentic, we would plant them as far down as the sheets would reach. So we took the oddly phony panties and pushed them down between the sheets, and down the end of the bed where they were tucked in. We waited. Mom came home, her usual cheerful self, and we could hardly contain our glee, as we knew that washday (Monday), would be the telling tale. Now, I have to say, in our defense, that it never occurred to us that Mom would take it seriously. Who in the world would wear teeny tiny bikinis all marked up with a black marker???‑ I guess rage disarms logic. Monday washday came, and Mom was stripping her bed. We heard things crashing and the sounds of a berserk entity!‑ She was enraged! All of us stood stunned for a split second, downstairs, before we cleared out of the house. When we returned, our mother was NOT speaking. (Not speaking was her cruelest form of punishment). When my youngest brother returned home, the silence was deadly. Horrible. Punishing. Killing. Poor kid had not a clue as to why the deadly silent treatment was being visited upon him. He tiptoed around our mother like a prisoner in his own home. He had not a clue as to what had brought our mothers wrath upon him. Days went by and the silence continued. It is thought that Mom holds herself, “in silence”, waiting for a confession she thinks surely will come. The agony was palpable. My brother only knew his name was “Mudd”. (For those who might be curious as to where that expression came from, Mr. Werling, who taught us History at Elmhurst, could readily tell you. Dr. Mudd was the doctor to whom John Wilkes Booth fled when he escaped from the stage, where he had jumped, after shooting President Lincoln.‑ Dr. Mudd had not a clue as to who he was treating, but when the angry crowd got to him, and found out he had set Booth’s leg, they hauled him off to prison where he languished for years.) If your “name is Mudd” you are indeed in deep trouble!!‑ Well, when my brother never confessed the dreadful crime, my mother was forced to spring the “evidence” upon him. She whipped out those panties. She must have been keeping then in her apron pocket for days, and waved them in front of his face, lashing‑him with her words. My brother stood in stunned silence. It took him a while before he put all the pieces together, but he did. Then the‑quest began. WHO put those panties in Mom’s spool bed?‑ It never occurred to us not to confess, but my brother was so mad that we COULDN’T confess. We didn’t confess then, and we have never confessed to this day. It is one of those family stories that puts us on the floor with laughter every time someone tells it.‑ But…we never tell it around our youngest brother. He is still mad as an old wet hen, as our mother used to say!
Still laughing after all these years,
Mae
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