To follow up on the last memoir bit, The Belt or the Switch?, one of the last times the switch was used with any degree of force happened after what my brother and I later called the lemon cookie catastrophe. My father was addicted to lemon frosting-filled cookies, and every other week my mother would bring home a package of the sweet treats with the groceries, which would go into the metal bread box on the counter. The catastrophe began with the fact that both Jay and I loved cookies and tended to sneak them when no one was looking. As a result, the number of lemon cookies in the bag would diminish rapidly in just a few days, much to my father’s displeasure.
“Who ate the lemon cookies?” Dad would ask in exasperation each time.
“Noelle did,” Jay would answer.
“Jay did,” I would reply.
Finally, Dad’s patience wore out. Tired of never knowing who was to be punished for eating his cookies, he found a solution. “The next time I find that anyone has been eating my cookies, you will both be switched.”
Sure enough, the following week he went to grab a cookie after dinner and found the bag had only one. “That’s it,” he roared and asked Jay and me who ate his cookies.
“I didn’t, I swear,” I vowed.
“I didn’t eat your cookies this time,” answered Jay tearfully, knowing what was coming.
Nevertheless, Dad cut a green switch from the back yard forsythia, returned to the kitchen and gave both Jay and me a thorough licking, energized by the fact that he was tired of our lying.
I was sitting on the back steps, crying, when Mom came in from the drying area with a pile of clothes in her arms. I followed her into the kitchen, wailing about being punished for something I didn’t do. “What’s going on here, John?” Mom asked.
“I’m tired of those kids lying about eating the lemon cookies,” he answered, “so this time they both got switched.”
“Oh dear,” Mom sighed. “I forgot to tell you that the bridge club was here this afternoon and I served them the lemon cookies.”
I remember wailing even louder about the unfairness of it all and not surprisingly, I was ordered to my room. I left, but not before I heard Dad say, “Well, shit.”
About time Dad got in trouble. 🙂 Funny story, though I’m sure it wasn’t funny all those years ago.
It wasn’t funny then, but it didn’t take long for my brother and I to start teasing him with it!
Very funny… years later, but I bet you felt very annoyed at the time! It’s amazing how these seeminlgy ‘unimportant’ little things stick in our memories and are transformed into something we can later see in a completely different light!
Ah, the advantages of growing older!
I’m sure lessons were learned all around after this little event. Thanks for the laugh, although I do feel bad that it’s due to sore bottoms. Thanks for sharing this little tale.
You welcome. One of many incidents that I can now look back on and laugh.
What a wonderful memory even though it hurt at the time. A lovely twist at the end with your mother’s friends devouring the cookies. Your Dad probably felt so bad that he stopped using the switch because of it or you both just became too good. You put me in mind of my mothers treatment of cookies. She would put them in the fridge with a hand written note “Irene don’t touch” and I have to say if the note was there I didn’t dare eat even one.
Your mother was a wise woman. I think if there had been a warning note on our cookies, we probably would have left them alone!
This made me grin, poor Noelle, switched for the Bridge Club’s transgressions. 🙂 I bet your dad felt miserable afterward (one definitely gets that impression from his exclaimer at the end).
I suddenly want a lemon cookie…
You know, when I finished writing that, I went out and bought a lemon bar!