A Cautionary Tale for Unruly Children
Women are vengeful creatures. This is a lesson I learned very early in life when I discovered that the most dangerous woman you shall ever know is your mother.
Perhaps at the beginning of time a bargain was struck with the Creator, and so, for woman’s vital role in the bringing forth of new life, she was bestowed with the Gift. Perhaps mothers, being sensitive and intuitive, have more developed psychic abilities. Or maybe motherhood simply cultivates an interest in voodoo. Whatever the source, I am quite certain that these women command a power that can only be described as the secular equivalent of godsmack. My own mother swells with this gift, as I learned one fateful day.
I was a wee peanut of a child at the time, sitting at the kitchen table. No, I’m sorry. Not sitting. Kneeling. That’s how the conflict began.
From the other end of the table, absorbed in her project, my mother said, “Sit on that chair the right way.”
I was surprised that she had acknowledged me. I briefly considered complying with her request, but she hadn’t even bothered to look up. I was quite comfortable the way I was, so I shifted back and forth a little to appease her (figuring she wouldn’t know the difference) and continued with what I was doing.
“I said sit on that chair the right way,” my mother repeated, glaring at me this time.
“But then I can’t reach good,” I complained. Who was I hurting by kneeling on the chair? What was this woman’s problem? I decided that she was being unreasonable, she was trying to start a fight, or both. I wasn’t a defiant child, but I choose in this moment to be stubborn.
“I’m only going to ask you one more time . . .”
I ignored her. Wait, did I hear something? No, no, I don’t think I did.
Now, I was a reasonably intelligent child, but I did not sense the disturbance in the atmosphere. Perhaps if I wasn’t so confident that my mother didn’t know how to pick her battles, I might have felt the prickling of energy sparking around the room. This argument was clearly heading for a climax, but I didn’t see it coming.
And then I heard it. In an otherworldly voice she bellowed All. Three. Names. Suddenly my head snapped up, my eyes filled with terror. I was young, but well aware that my mother broke out our full names only when we were in a world of trouble. I realize now that as the syllables rolled off her tongue, she was invoking the Divine Power of Retribution. It was too late for apologies. I was about to be smote.
“Anastasia Lynn Willets! You sit yourself down in that chair the right way before you fall and smash the teeth out of your . . .”
She never finished the sentence. As soon as I heard my full name echo through the house, I hastily tried to adjust my position. But, having already been conjured, the Angel of Vengeance descended upon me and caused me to slip. I plunged forward, my face colliding into the table with a sickening crack.
I prematurely lost my two front teeth that day. Soaked in tears and blood, I learned what it meant to defy my mother.
Natural consequences, she called it. Natural consequences.
I spoke with a lisp for at least a year or two. You expect me to believe gravity was to blame?