Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Sassafras Suntan Lotion and The Big Whopper

I learned to be an excellent liar. Mom bored down on me one time, confronting me with a lie and gritted out, “Never ever lie to me. I will always find out. It may not be the same day or even the next week. But, eventually I will find out.” Her omniscience was amazing and the threat of what would come next terrifying. But she also told me that I was guilty until proven innocent, which didn’t allow for questioning falsely reported or exaggerated tales. The gauntlet had been thrown down. If I was going to lie about something, a pre-emptive strike tactic might be the best. If I had any plans to lie about something that had happened and knew that the mom-network might get wind of the story, I’d better tell her about the incident before she heard it from someone else. That way, she would already know my version and might be suspicious of what she heard. I tested out my theory on a relatively low-level occurrence, and it seemed to work. I wasn’t pathological about lying because I was basically a well-behaved kid. But every once in awhile even a good kid gets caught up in a bad situation. There was one basic rule I followed: stick as closely to the truth as possible. But being a good liar is not something I was ever proud of. I’m still racked with guilt over the first big whopper I ever told.

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

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