Kathy Anderson, a girl who was relatively new to the
neighborhood, and I decided to invent a product that would make us millions. We
were about ten years old so the level of sophistication was pretty basic. It
was the height of summer, and my mother had just taken up golf lessons at the
country club. Consequently, she was away for the morning doing a round of nine
holes with the ladies’ group. My four-year-old sister was playing at a friend’s
house, so Kathy and I were on our own. The previous day, we had harvested the
empty lot next door for sassafras leaves and plunged them into a bucket of
water. Over night, the water had become thickened as a syrupy substance leached
out of the sassafras leaves and into the water. After removing the leaves, we
then rubbed what we called Sassafras Suntan Lotion on our bodies and imagined
that it was turning our skin a beautiful golden bronze. Excited by our
“discovery,” Kathy instructed me to run and get another bucket full of water so
we could immediately start making another batch. We were going to be rich.
I ran into our yard, located my sister’s orange beach pail
with the white plastic handle and went to fill it up with the hose. The
hose was connected to the sprinkler watering the front lawn and I dared not go
through the trouble of unhooking it. If I failed to hook it back up properly, I
was afraid I might get yelled at. Undaunted, I brought the pail into the house,
a place I was not to go while Mother was away, filled up the bucket in the
bathtub and began to carry it back outside. Mom and Dad had just installed
wall-to-wall carpeting in the living room and hallway (it was the in-thing to
do in the late ’60s) over the top of beautiful oak wood floors. Just as I
reached the end of the hallway carrying my bucket full of water, the white
plastic handle popped off and the entire contents spilled onto the carpet. I
was horrified at what probably amounted to be a couple quarts of water, as it
seemed to be of flood-like proportions. But, my ten-year-old brain reasoned
that it would quickly dry. I filled the bucket up again and went back to making
Sassafras Suntan Lotion.
A couple hours later, my mother returned from golf, my
sister in tow, and began making some lunch for us girls. I noted that the water
spot was still very dark and very wet but still reasoned that perhaps my mother
would not notice. Then, miraculously, my sister gave me an idea. She was only
four but had talked my mom into giving her a big glass of water complaining
that she was very thirsty. She then sat right behind the spot while we both
watched television and waited for our lunch. I kept glancing back
surreptitiously to see if Mom had noticed how wet the carpet was there when I
noticed that my sister was spilling water on the very spot. An idea began to
form in my head.
When Mom finally discovered the wet carpet, she had an
absolute fit. Both my sister and I started crying. I lied about having anything
to do with it accusing, “Susan was sitting there with that big glass of water.”
My mother was so confused she didn’t know what to do and she was blazing mad. I
suspect that she knew Susan had spilled some water, she could probably see that
for herself from the kitchen. But, she couldn’t reason out how it could have
been so much. We were both sent to our room, I presume without lunch, since we
were both so upset. Mom tried to mop up some of the water with towels but I’m
sure the padding was soaked as well and it was pretty hopeless. She placed a
fan near the spot to aid in a more rapid drying rate. It smelled a bit at first
but that went away after a couple days and it didn’t leave a stain except
probably on the now hidden oak floor beneath.
We lived in that house for another six years before moving
to Florida, and I never walked past that area of the carpet without feeling a
pang of guilt—for the lie as well as for making my sister unknowingly complicit.
Copyright DJ Anderson, 2014
