Scary Aunt

Wow! If I believed in guilt, I'd feel terrible about how long it has been since I wrote a post.

Today I remembered something from my childhood. My Mom had a motor home. We made regular trips to Lake Michigan near Muskegon. My next oldest sibling was eleven years older than I am, so it's fair to assume that my Mom had her fill of kid crap before I came along. We used to take these Lake Michigan trips with my Aunt Judy. One of my Mom's favorite threats to enforce good behavior was "If you're naughty, you'll have to go sit with Aunt Judy!"

One day I crossed the line. I'm not sure where the line was, or what I did to cross it. But I did. So, I was sent to the front passenger seat of the motor (Aunt Judy was driving). I plopped down in the seat, with my most sullen face on. Furious that I had been banished. I should note that at this time, I really had not spoken much with Aunt Judy. When you're a kid, you don't pay much attention to adults.

So, there I was. Exiled to the front of the motor home. Terrified of what sort of awful thing my Aunt was going to do to me. She spoke first. "So, you must have gotten sent here because you were naughty?"

I stuck out my bottom lip and nodded.

"This must be pretty scary, huh?"

Again, I nodded.

"Tell me...which things have I done that were really scary?"

I thought on this for a while. Try as I might, I couldn't think of anything. In fact...I realized pretty quickly that my Aunt had been used as a threat because we were terrified of her, but she had really done very little to earn her reputation as a terrifying person. At least to us kids. My aunt and I chatted for the remaining two hours of the drive and it turned out that she wasn't always scary. I won't say "She wasn't scary" because she sometimes had a sharp tongue, but it turned out that she directed it at me (or any of us kids) very little.

As an adult I still question my opinions of people and whether they come from experience or reputation.