Just Wait until your Dad gets Home

 

Just Wait until Your Dad Gets Home

This is a familiar phrase used by mothers all over the south to instill fear in their children.  Obedience was an expectation that seldom was rendered satisfactorily.  At wit’s end, a mother might resort to the famous saying in exasperation, after discipline of her own had failed her.  Exhausted, physically and emotionally, she would defer the child’s punishment to her spouse.  The anticipation of the impending “spanking” was almost as bad as the actual act for these unfortunate sons and daughters.  My mother was no different in her attempt to keep unruliness at bay.  Although my sister and I were angels most of the time, we would on occasion get in hot water with our mother.  When she had had enough, she would blurt out the always frightening: “just wait until your dad gets home”!  Litte did she know!  

My Dad could discipline us with just a “look”.  He didn’t need to resort to a whooping.  He had gotten so many of them as a boy that I don’t think he could bring himself to be on the other end of such violence.  When he came through the door, mom would convey that she needed him to proceed to give us a punishment.  He would take us into the bathroom one at a time.  He would say, “Now I am going to hit the back of my hand and when I do, you cry, okay?”  So, he hit the back of his hand a few times, and we faked crying to the best of our ability.  This satisfied our mother and kept us out of harm’s way.  I don’t know if my mother ever knew he did that, but she probably suspected something.  Either way, she still continued to use the threat: “wait until your dad gets home”!  And we couldn’t wait!

Tammy Harvey  10/26/2025          

I've Lost It

 

Right Under my Nose

Have you ever looked for something that you misplaced?  I have this obsession that I must find anything that is lost or be able to explain its disappearance.  I have often seen the sign: “It’s not really lost, until Mom can’t find it”.  Well, that’s me the sign is describing.  I often prided myself on being able to tell my husband and children exactly where something was located.  It was like I had a compartmental brain that kept track of everything.  That was then.  This is now.  At 65, my mind is not near as sharp in identifying the whereabouts of all things.  Recently, I misplaced a tool that should have been in my garage.  I live alone so I should be the one to have put it in its place.  I faintly remember thinking this is a good “new” place to store the rubber mallet, but now the “new” place escapes my memory.  I went into the garage and looked with my eyes, scouring the shelves and doing a truly thorough job of visibly searching for it.  I looked in all the obvious places and in all of the not-so-obvious places.  I could not locate it.  I looked in the yard, because I could have left it outside accidentally.  Nothing.  I texted my sons to see if perhaps they had borrowed it. Nope.  It should have been highly visible because it has a bright yellow fiberglass handle.  This was really bugging me.  Maybe I threw it out with the yard waste?  I got up the next day and did a much-needed cleaning of my garage, organizing and moving many things around.  Still no luck.  I was almost to the point of giving up, but that never happens.  The next day my son dropped off an extra rubber mallet he had, but it wasn’t the one I was searching for.  I didn’t need a mallet.  I needed to find a mallet.  There is a difference.

 That same evening, I drove in after dark, parked in the garage, got out, turned the corner at the front of my car  ready to open the door to the house and to my surprise, the rubber mallet I had spent so much time looking for was sitting there in plain sight in its “new” place, just where I had put it.  Yes, it was hanging by its rubber head, handle dangling down between the two rolling carts of tools.  I had used many of the tools but had never seen the mallet there among them.  Was I blind?  I guess so because it was right under my nose the entire time.  If it had been the copperhead snake in one of my recent posts, it would have bitten me.  Why so much time and energy spent on finding something that could be replaced for $10?  Well, I guess it is an “obsessed mom” thing. I can accurately, literally and figuratively, say that "I've lost it"! (my mind)

Tammy Harvey

9/10/2025

The Impossible Dream

 

The Impossible Dream

I dreamed about this story last night.  I don’t know what it means, after all, I don’t even have a brother.

It was after supper and homework was done when I ran up the wooden steps to the second floor of our house.  My hard-bottomed Mary Janes made a nice tapping sound on every wooden stair that I climbed.  My pigtails were still intact after a long, tiring day at school in the third grade.  I paused at the top and looked into my brother’s bathroom across the hall from his bedroom.  I was told to stay out of there, but that just enticed me to want to go in there more.  I could claim it was an “emergency”.  I entered and closed the door.  I hesitated because the lock was broken, and I couldn’t maintain my privacy.  I thought about leaving and going to the other bathroom, but convinced it would only take a minute, I proceeded with my business.  As soon as I sat down on the toilet, my brother, who was 15 years old, burst into the bathroom.  He ignored me at first and then our eyes met and simultaneously we both gritted our teeth and whisper shouted, “get out”!  I said I was here first, and he proceeded to go to the sink and look at himself in the mirror.  He drew the water in the basin and began putting shaving cream on his barely-there stubbled face.  Again, I said get out, I was here first, to which he replied “well, you are not supposed to be in here”.  I thought about my options.  I could scream for our parents but probably would only get myself in trouble.  I could plead with my brother not to tell them.  I had no bargaining chips.  He knew that I secretly smuggled the family dog into my bed to sleep with me at night, which was not permissible either.  He really did have the upper hand.  I could diplomatically ask my parents to fix the lock on the bathroom door, but in doing so could give my disobedience away.  I was caught between a rock and a hard place in this situation.  I said, if you have any decency, let me out of here without a peep, and I promise never to come here again.  At this point, he was shaving his face like he thought he was a man.  I sat there, feet dangling, my jumper skirt covered me, so there was no exposure.  He said, okay, I’ll step out, you finish up and get out of here.  I hope you learned your lesson!  I was relieved that he was graciously giving me an escape from this predicament.  I guess I owed him now, more than ever.  I did learn a valuable lesson from this interaction: before you go into a place you shouldn’t be, make sure you have some blackmailing material on your brother, just in case he wants to rat you out!

What a weird dream!

  Tammy Harvey  9/2/2025

Gardening

 

True Story of Gardening

In my flower garden I was working,

Little did I know, so many creatures were lurking,

An extremely large praying mantis was my first encounter,

Possibly 4 inches long, reverently posed in a prayerful stature,

As I dug my first hole, a fat little frog was on display,

I carefully placed him out of harm’s way,

Dragonflies were plentiful and butterflies galore,

A menagerie of fluttering, who could ask for more?

There were bumblebees perched on the tops of the sedum,

Joined by honeybees who flitted, enjoying their freedom,

I sat down for a break and to my surprise,

A hummingbird appeared before my very eyes,

It was sipping out of my hummingbird feeder,

And the sound of its wings was like musical theater,

It was only a few feet from my chair, so I froze,

But it flew away quickly, migrating south, I suppose,

As I dug my last hole, a squirming plump earthworm appeared,

A good sign that the soil was better than I feared,

For clay in my garden can be as hard as a rock,

 Oh, but time has flown by, as I look at the clock,

I enjoyed the creatures I’ve seen in my garden today,

I welcome them to always come for a stay!

Tammy Harvey

9/5/2025