Showering

I'm three perhaps four years old. I'm in the shower with my dad. He wants me to wash my own hair. I won't. I don't want to, don't think I can. I know I'm in trouble, I remember the taste of the bar of soap he put in my mouth.

I don't know why I was still in the shower with him at this age. Looking back it seems very strange to me but I don't remember feeling uncomfortable at the time. Just angry that I had to wash my own hair.

The Butterfly

We were in the store, trying on clothes. The plastic collar off of a collared shirt, the plastic clips that hold it together. I had them all, sitting in front of me on the dressing room floor. Nothing but time on my hands as I started hooking them together in an effort to form some sort of coherent shape.

Next thing I knew it was done. A butterfly. Crude and not quite in shape but my creation just the same. I carried that thing all over with me. I have no recollection of how long I had it, all I remember is how I lost it.

I took it to the baby sitters. I was showing it off to the kids there and somehow it got set on a shelf and I forgot it. Went home without my precious creation and by the time I got there the next day it was gone. One of the younger kids had found it and pulled it apart.

The next time we were at the store I tried to get the parts to make another one but was never able to find just the right stuff to come together in just the right way.