Growing Up….Off
It all makes sense now
Wait until your father gets home!
Punishment was a ritual in our home and I still feel bad for Daddy coming home from a hard day at the garage to find his four little girls lined up and ready to troop one at a time up the stairs to get the strap.
The family “joke” was that the garrison belt my uncle sent from Afghanistan was used so often it wore in two so that now there was a strap upstairs and one hanging in the cellarway. Easier to grab when needed and apparently those straps were needed often in our household (Curious to overhear a conversation among certain relatives at a family get-together about how well-behaved Diane’s girls were. No shit.).
So in comes Daddy after another brutal day fixing cars and here’s Mom running down our infractions. He washes up and has a beer. The four of us are waiting at the foot of the stairs.
I’m the oldest so I go up first.
I don’t like getting the strap. It hurts like hell and Daddy seems to belt all the harder when I wiggle and cry out. It also seems to last forever. I’m bunched up and tense at the top of each downward stroke so that when it hits, it hurts even worse but it’s not as if I can ever relax, right?
