Growing up, it was always the 3 of us. Mom, my sister April and myself. Sometimes my mom had boyfriends, some for weeks, occasionally some made it a few months and very rarely, but at least on a few occasions, over a year. One winning example of a man she deemed worthy of more than a year, with some break ups and repeat performances thru out my life was Dex.
Dex was a biker, with greasy black hair and an unkempt black beard to match. He could always be found with a beer in his big hairy mitt, adorned in a tacky leather vest covered in patches. Ill fitting jeans were no stranger to this man and his protruding belly. My mother adored Dex, the sun rose and set in his black and beady little eyes for her. Despite the obvious hero-worship happening, mom never trusted Dex. She would often times tell us horror stories from his past when he wasn’t around, cautioning us to be aware of how we were dressed or which pajamas were appropriate to wear if he was going to be there that night. She’d warn us of his unabashed foot fetish or the child molestation he was wanted for in another state , even once telling us he tried to kill her with the same knife he always kept on his person.
At this point, you’re judging her thinking why would this women allow this man around her babies? Well, fear not, as our mother, the saint, had a very special way of “protecting us” from Dex. We were accustomed to her keeping anything personal or financial locked in the trunk of her car with all of her boyfriends for fear that they might steal what very little money she did have, but there was another way she shielded us when Dex was a part of our lives. An ironing board and a towel. Yes. You read that correctly.
You’re asking yourself, did she train these young girls to use the ironing board and towel as say a young ninja might? Were we well versed in an underground ironing board and towel fighting technique you are just hearing about now? Sadly no, to both. The way in which our mother “protected us” was this. April was given an ironing board and each night before bed she would take it into her room, close the door and prop the board against it. The idea here is that anyone who opens the door will knock the board over and make quite a racket. Not bad, right? Well let me finish. We, like most families, only had one ironing board, so when security systems were being doled out, I, the youngest, was given a towel. I can see how this would be a difficult concept for outsiders to grasp so let me break it down for you. The towel wasn’t going to alert anyone of anything, I wasn’t t supposed to fashion it into a weapon of mass strangulation or hide underneath it in the laundry basket. The only solace my mother offered me was a towel, with which I was instructed to stuff it underneath my door after closing each night, so that I would know in the morning if “someone” had come into my room while I was sleeping. Yes. AFTER the fact.
Being around 12 or 13 years old and knowing the only thing standing between you and rape is a towel teaches you two things in my experience.
The first thing is that you will never be more invested in a project than I was when I was stuffing that towel under my door each night. Full concentration and brute force, as if working on my towel folding skills long enough would somehow offer any kind of real protection in the dead of night.
Two, is that again, when the only thing protecting you from an old gnarly drunk invading your space in every way imaginable, is a fucking towel, you can forget about sleep. Just, just don’t. It’s not gonna happen. Is 12 too young to develop a caffeine pill habit? No, no it is not when you spend most nights with your eyes glued to a towel. You simply have no idea. We couldn’t all be Princess April, wafting away to dream land in our fortress of clangy ironing board protected slumber.
In closing, this is why when all my friends were pleading with their parents for a dope azz new outfit, a fun-filled day at the roller rink or maybe even their very own puppy, all I REALLY wanted was another ironing board in the God Damned house, so I could get some sleep too.
Dedicated to my mom.
Thanks.
Pretty polar 