My mother often said, βIf you have kids, you canβt have anything else.βΒ Well, she was wrong.Β We had a new toilet seat.Β After installing it, Daddy looked around, stared us down, and threatened.Β βIβd better not see anybodyβs initials on this seat!βΒ Where did that come from?Β Iβd never heard of anybody putting initials on a toilet seat.
I went about my business, that toilet seat and Β initials, foremost on my mind.Β I wrote LDS in my “Night Before Christmas” book, LDS in the sand under the big shade tree, scooped up some mud and wrote LDS on the dog house. Still unsatisfied, I heated the ice pick on a stove burner and burned LDS on a green Tupperware tumbler.
Feeling strangely unfulfilled and restless, I couldnβt think of a thing to do.Β Billy was off somewhere playing with Froggy.Β Mother and the baby were taking a nap, so if I stayed in the house, I had to be quiet.Β I slipped in the kitchen to see if there was any Kool Aid miraculously left in the pitcher.Β No luck. Dejected, I went to the bathroom.
There it was calling to me, pristine in its unblemished beauty.Β The new toilet seat!!!Β I sat down, my bare bottom luxuriating in its cool smoothness. I got up, locked the door, and turned the seat up. Making sure no one was looking through the window, I got Motherβs eyebrow pencil out of the medicine cabinet and wrote LDS in tiny letters where no one would ever see it.Β Terrified, I erased my crime.Β The finish was dull from pencil smears. My heart pounded!Β I was caught!Β I got tissue and buffed it off.Β Thank goodness the shine was back.Β Relieved, I sat on the side of the bathtub to catch my breath.Β A nail fell out of my pocket and clattered to the bottom of the tub.Β Never has the devil so possessed a soul.Β Grasping the nail, I scratched BRS, Billyβs initials, on the toilet seat.Β Horrified, at the enormity of my crime, I tiptoed past the room where Mother and the baby still slept.Β By this time, Billy and Froggy had gotten back.Β We were throwing mud balls at each other when I heard a shriek from the house.Β βBILLY RAY SWAIN!!Β You come here this minute!βΒ I didnβt need to go in to know what was wrong.Β I heard βSpat! Spat! Spat!β and in a few minutes he was out, still snuffling.
βWhat happened?β
βMother whooped me for putting my initials on the toilet seat. I told her I didnβt know how to write but she said, βWho else would put your initials on the toilet seat?β β
How longΒ could it be before she found the Tupperware?