It's A Hard-Knock Life

Saturday mornings were almost as bad as Sunday mornings in our house.

On Sunday, you were forced to get up and stuff yourself into tights and a dress, not a twirly one, and sit on a hard, sharp, pointy church pew for an hour, listening to someone spout words so foreign in meaning it made your head hurt if you tried to make sense of them.

Saturday mornings were almost as bad.

While I was up at the crack of dawn and did get in some playing time before Mom got up, she usually appeared before I had a chance to accomplish everything I had planned for the day.

She would emerge from her boudoir in her maroon, or pink, satin pajamas, robe, and slippers and say, “Girls! It’s time for a family meeting!”

Those words pained me. They wrenched at my gut and made me want to stomp my feet and scream at the top of my lungs.

We never hopped to right away and she would have to summon us a second time. Someone would shout, “Coming!”, and she would say in her best teacher voice, “Coming is in the process of.”

Wendy, Maria, and I would trudge into the living room and sit down on the poop brown couch with frustrated moans. It was like going to our deaths.

Then Mom started talking. No, ordering.

“Kara, you will pick up the living and dining room. Dust the surfaces, to include the window sills and blinds.”

“Maria, you will pick up the girls’ bedroom and bathroom, to include taking the towels to the laundry room.”

“Wendy, you will pick up Bill’s room, to include putting away the folded laundry in the basket on his floor.”

She would look at each one of us as she spoke, her words succinct and deliberate. Her black eyebrows would raise over her blue eyes and we knew she would remember exactly what she told us to do.

“Do we all understand?” she would ask.

Nods and sighs and groans were her answer.

“Good,” she would say. “Now get started.”

Maybe Saturday mornings were worse than Sundays. At least I could say I didn’t understand what the man in robes was saying so I didn’t have to pay attention.

Ugh…