That Ol’ Silver Grain Bin
“Don’t you go out there in that ol’ grain bin,” Mom always told me, wagging her finger in my direction. Whenever she pointed that finger, I knew she was serious. But that just made me want to do exactly what she was warning me against.
I certainly didn’t listen well, and because of it I was often injured. Whenever my parents — or anyone else for that matter — told me not to do something, the first thing that popped into my mind was, “Why not?” followed by, “I’m doing it anyway!”
Doing it anyway, of course, always got me into trouble.
I’d walked by that silver grain bin several times prior but had never gone inside. It seemed dark and spooky, but I was nevertheless intrigued when I passed it each day to board the school bus. It sat right inside the barbed wire horse pasture fence. There was one dark, doorless entrance and no windows. One day the bus chugged down the road and, as usual, crossed the “broken bridge.” I timed the bump just right, flew high into the air, and came crashing down. The bus stopped in front of our house, I got off and immediately fixated on that dark entrance. I heard Mom’s voice as though she was an angel sitting on my shoulder. “Don’t you go into that ol’ grain bin,” she said.
On my other shoulder sat a tiny little devil whose voice said to me, “Do it!”
I dropped my backpack in the grass next to our driveway, where Dad parked his mint green pickup truck. Walking over to the entrance of the grain bin I stopped, thinking to myself, “This is not a good idea.” I continued, though. Instead of waltzing right in, I poked my head across the threshold, into the darkness. The dust inside was thick, the air damp; it smelled like death.
In that dusty, damp, deathly, darkness, I could barely make out the shape of broken furniture. Apparently, someone had used it to store or dispose of unwanted items. There was a broken table on the right, a rickety wooden chair and ancient television to the left. Straight ahead was a plain wooden box leaning against the far wall, calling out my name. I couldn’t tell where the rotting, foul stench was coming from. Maybe there was a dead rat or something. I walked the five or six feet toward the mysterious box.
Flies buzzed around, likely feasting on whatever emitted that awful odor. Once fully inside, all of a sudden, WHAM! It felt like someone had hit me in the face with a baseball bat. Whatever it was, it knocked me clean off my feet. I rolled over, scrambled up, and bolted. The flies buzzed even louder and now seemed to be everywhere, on every surface and in the air. It seemed to take forever to get to the exit only a few feet away. When I finally got outside, I realized that those weren’t flies, they were enormous black and yellow bees. One had stung me right between my eyes, knocking me down.
I ran home screaming and dived into Mom’s lap, holding my face in my hands. When she pried my hands apart, a big purple knot, the size of one of those plums I loved, had already swollen between my eyes. She went to the kitchen and got the same towel I had used when I spilled that boiling water on my stomach. She wrapped ice in the towel, pressed it against my forehead.
Lying beside her with my head on her lap, she stared down and said sharply, “I told you not to go in there!” Through the anger in her furrowed brow and the worried look in her eyes, I could tell that it hurt her deeply to see my pain. A mother’s love is unmistakable.
“A hard head makes a soft behind,” she mumbled under her breath, holding me close. “You gonna learn to listen when I tell you something.” She rocked me slowly until I fell asleep in her arms.
I hope you enjoyed this post — if you want to connect, you can reach me here via email at ty@typinkins.com or connect with me on social: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Also, you can purchase my book, 23 Miles & Running, on Amazon.
