Cousins Let me start by saying half of what you are about to hear may not be all true and the other half, well, may actually be worse than what I am going to admit to. Almost all of us have cousins and truth be known; we all got that one cousin that you can still hear your momma saying, “Oh Lord, they are coming for a visit.” To hear my people talk, I was that one cousin you hated to see coming. I may have mentioned before that my grandmother on daddy’s side was still having children when she started getting grandchildren. Yep, there were nine kids in my daddy’s family so I actually have cousins that were like aunts and uncles. My long, tall, and lanky cousin Mike from Jackson stayed with us when he worked at Lancaster Electric in Hattiesburg. And he swore up and down that he had to haul my hinny around in my little red wagon all day long until his back hurt. Apparently that was the only way to get me to stop screaming. I recall no such thing. My cousin Cheryl from Texas recently reported to the entire family that I may have been a little difficult to deal with when my mother went to the hospital to get me a new brother. Back before Cheryl, Aunt Mary and Uncle Bobby moved out to the Lone Star state they lived in Hattiesburg, close to us. Again, I am gonna plea the fifth but apparently I had an award winning performance of upmost proportions, refusing to go to sleep until someone got me some watermelon…in March. Apparently, I begin my life as an unpaid private investigator when I was a toddler. Mother said I plundered all the time. I like to look at it as I was learning what not to do. How many of you guys remember that little silver can that was on top of the stove? You know the one that when your momma got finished frying chicken she poured the hot grease through the top strainer and it rested in the bottom of that can until the next time. To hear my momma tell it, I bathed my whole body in that greasy stuff, hair and all. Now picture this, my momma, dressed for work, with her arms stretched out in front of her, toting me and my greasy body down Edwards Street. Yep, all the way down to my Aunt Mary’s house, where she proceeded to give me away. Come to think about it, Aunt Mary moved not long after that. Now, I do not recall what inspired my cousin Tony to shoot me with his BB gun but I am certainly sure I did not deserve it. By the way, getting shot with a BB gun is not as fun as one might think. In fact, avoid it at all cost because if you get shot and then tattle about it, everyone gets a spanking. Cousin Tony got one for shooting me and I got one for tattling. Another thing about cousins, do not ever, never, ever let them know your fears. If you do and you are scared of crickets you will find yourself running like an complete idiot for years to come from your cousin Charles Albert and his endless supply of those dang things. I believe the last time I tattled to my Aunt Christine, Charles Albert was in his fifties. Ain’t nothing like being in your forties and telling on someone. Now, let me get to the part of the story that only confirms what I said earlier, I was that cousin. Somewhere in the year of 1971 I got the chicken pox. Yep, the worse case that Marion County Health Department had ever seen. Mother said I even had them on the bottoms of my feet and to keep me from scratching she put socks on my arms. And I somehow managed to share those pesky things to every cousin I had in Marion County too. I believe it is safe to say that my mother’s chicken pox limit was two weeks. Yep, two weeks because when I had missed exactly two weeks worth of school, my mother went to her bathroom cabinet and got her liquid make-up out. Yep, she coated my body down and sent my polka-dotted self back to school. The plan might have worked had the other seven year olds been allowed to wear make-up too. But being seven and dressed liked the town floozy tends to draw attention to the teachers and they sent me back home. Imagine that. Let me go ahead and apologize if you were part of the chicken pox epidemic of Marion County that I may have started. Oh and for the record while I was busy itching head to toe with what everyone called some kind of Old Testament plague, my little sister, the princess, only had three bumps. Yep, just three and while I was left alone to dodge some very angry cousins, my mother put my sister and her three bumps on a plane to New Jersey. If there was an epidemic out East, let me go ahead and apologize for that too. My bad.
Posted on: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 02:32:59 +0000
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