Drinking from the Water Hose




Janet & Karen

  I have some childhood friends that are still as bratty as ever probably.  These people ain't learned nothing in the last 40 years.  They can still get up to no good in nothing flat!  We were wonderful.  We never got into "serious" trouble.  We were scared of that.  But if a situation arose that needed to be "tended to", we SHOWED UP! 
I remember one particular summer day, my friends Karen & Janet were visiting.  They are sisters and could not be more different.  My mother was their mother's best friend and all of us were very close.  They visited us often and we were at their house just as often.

Charlotte

My older sister had a very important date this particular day.  This was before the age of central air and before the day of blow dryers.  Charlotte had been "primping" all day.  It was just enough to get on my nerves and provoke me to action.  I think at one time I even heard her singing "I Feel Pretty" from Westside Story...Anyway, mother had sent all of us (except Charlotte) outside to play.  Uh Oh!  I heard Charlotte running her bath water.  Because there was no airconditioner in the bathroom, the window was up.  Uh Oh!  My favorite thing to do when I was a child was walk on a barrell.  I was good at it.  So we had been playing on this barrell when I notice that the barrell will get me right about even with that bathroom window.  Karen, Janet and I sneak to the window with the water hose.  We had been told to drink out of the water hose if we got thirsty.  We just happened to get thirsty while walking on the barrell right under the bathroom window.  You got that?  Charlotte was sitting there in the tub with her hair in curlers just waiting for the last curl to dry.  She'd been waiting all day.  The target was on.  She let out a blood curtling cry when the first sprinkles got her from that water hose.  There was no need to hold back then, the damage was done.  So we let her have it!  Oh well another "whippin" came my way and there I was just a walkin' and thirsty.  It's the innocent that suffer the most on this journey.