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Encounters of the Kid KindLife With A Man |
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Mean People and Scary Things |
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All the kids in my grandmother's neighborhood lived in mortal terror of old Mr. Hodges. For one thing, he didn't smile whenever he
offered to take our ears in return for some flattened petunias. And my six-year-old brain was certain that, somewhere inside that house of his, a wall was covered with his collection of severed ears belonging to little
kids unfortunate enough to trespass in his tulip bed. But Mr. Hodges and his pocket knife were nothing compared to the one thing I was the most terrified of, the King Kong of childhood fears, the granddaddy of
terrors, my biggest, most all-consuming fear. No. It wasn't the bogeyman in the closet, nor the one under my bed, the one that would reach out and grab my ankles when I jumped up to use the bathroom in the middle of
the night. And it wasn't Vincent Price, who appeared in the movies my sister and I liked to watch, most of which were cheesy adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe stories. And it wasn't even my Dad when he was in a
particularly foul mood. Nope. I was mortified of my mother's sewing machine tension, petrified that I would one day accidentally touch the thing. |
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Mom (pointing to the little round knob on the front of the sewing machine): Do you see this? My sister and me: Yes, ma'am.
Mom: This is the tension. Never, ever, ever touch this. Ever. Do you understand? My sister and I would nod, then slink off, doing anything we could to avoid contact with the sewing machine tension. We weren't really
sure what would happen if we touched it – Mom never went into that much detail. But we wondered: would some huge monster appear and gobble us up? Would the sewing machine grow fangs and go on a rampage? And the biggest
concern little kids have with the forbidden: how would Mom know if we did touch it? We never found out as kids because we were too afraid to try. My own personal take on it was that we'd touch it and a big trap door
would open and wham! The offender would drop straight into hell. Even though I was an adventurous kid, I never wanted to take the chance. Over the years, I steadfastly refrained from touching that tension. My
understanding was that it took someone with intense training in tension adjustment, or at least knowing how to sew, to touch one and that anyone who simply touched one without being authorized would RUIN THE SEWING
MACHINE FOREVER. Then, a few years back I loaned my sewing machine to someone who promptly broke it and returned it that way. I ended up taking it to a repair shop. They fixed it and when I went to pick it up, I
confided in the woman behind the counter that I'd spent my whole entire life avoiding contact with a sewing machine tension. I can't be positive, but I'm pretty sure that odd expression passing over her face was
admiration |
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