Getting your mouth washed out with soap was my mother's version of a whooping or a spanking and, in that, I think it could be classified as cruel and unusual punishment. I don't remember ever being grounded as a child or really losing any priviledges, but I do recall the pungent aroma of the good old orange dial soap bars as my mother shoved them into my 'filthy' mouth after I had sassed or done something terrible (could this be why I have great gag reflexes now?). Sometimes, if we were lucky, it was from a squirt pump-- the liquified substance was much easier to take. The worst part of the whole painful process was the way the taste clung to your gums and tongue; it was one of the greatest paradoxes of all: how could something so clean taste so incredibly vile?
If I got my mouth washed out with soap before dinner, dinner became spaghetti and Dial or chicken terri-Soft Soap. If you think about it, my mother's punishment, meant to symbolically cleanse me of my filth and ill will, might chalk up to a strategy for someone trying to lose weight: who wants to eat that key lime pie when it tastes like soap?
The taste would linger no matter how i tried to neutralize it: milk, water, cranberry juice. "That's the point," my mom would note, "now you have a reminder of what you did." What was this, a temporary, internal scarlet letter? Did resisting to clean my room or teasing my sister really merit this vestige inside my mouth?
One would think that, if I hated it so much, I would have thought twice about acting out. However, I guess being human really ruined things for me as I usually decided to take my chances and convince myself that, even if i did get caught, I could stick out the purification process. Sometimes, it is better to pick the tomatoes and throw them at your neighbor's windows, sometimes it is better to get it out of your system and face the imminent repercussions.
Last night at dinner, my friends introduced me to another version of cleansing, less literal than my mom's. Both of them attended Catholic high schools and during their senior year went on a serious, moving retreat called a Kiros, which means "In God's hands". On this Kiros, high school seniors spend hours self reflecting and connecting with God. A self purification and a means to cleanse oneself of anxiety.
I am also Catholic but I was a Catechism kid-- the only retreat I went on was one right before my Confirmation that i only attended after kicking and screaming (well not literally, but i was not pleased about attending). The retreat did not have any effect on me. I actually only remember two things: 1. I was worried the entire time about finishing an English paper due that Monday and 2. they made us sing that Sophie B. Hawkin's song "As I lay me down to sleep".
It is funny how, though we were raised to praise the same holy trinity, the impact and the presentation of our religious educations were so... disparate. In fact, though i was a total brown-nosing, straight A student throughout my career in public education, Catechism classes were my outlet to rebellion. Because I knew that my success in Catechism would in no way impact my ability to attend a top university or a score a succesful career, it was low priority. It's kind of sad that I already realized these facts of life as an elementary school student.
While I would go above and beyond on the simplest assignment for school, I flat out refused to complete the cloze passages in my Catechism workbooks about the events that occured in the Garden of Eden or the sequencing exercise about the Last Supper.
It was in Catechism class that I was, for the first time, sent to the office and given warnings by a teacher. It was also in Catechism class that I befriended a "bad" girl, whom we will refer to as Maggie. Maggie and I both attended the same middle school and had attended the same elementary school. Maggie was a doctor's daughter who hung out with the smokers and got bad grades, despite the fact that she was actually pretty intelligent. Maggie was also not about to put up with this Catechism bull. Though I acted out because I thought it was a waste of time, valuable time that I could be spending watching Dawson's Creek and finishing my math homework, Maggie acted out because she could, because she was Maggie. I must have admired her, had some sort of twisted respect for this person who so willingly defied authority ( with plenty of witty one-liners to boot) and didn't give a rat's ass about the consequences. Maggie was the type of person who would probably take a bite out of the soap and ask for more, just to make a point.
One evening at Catechism class, Maggie and I were sent to the office after blatantly ignoring our teacher, a squat, sturdy man with pit stains who was a stay at home dad by profession, who had repeated asked us to turn to page 24 to complete partner discussion questions about the return of the prodigal son. Instead, we were, if I had to guess, bitching about how we were missing Dawson's Creek.
We weren't too concerned about going down to the office; actually, it gave us the chance to get out of class and wander the halls for a few minutes. It wasn't a real 'office' anyway, there weren't any 'real' repercussions. The woman who served as the 'principal' figure was a woman named Carolyn Clark, a pious bitch whose daughter, I would come to learn, would get impregnated at fifteen. Of course, Carolyn didn't know this the day we were sent to the office and it was in her hands to prevent us from falling from grace (my mother, when the pregnancy was uncovered, would snidely remark that maybe if Carolyn Clark had spent less time kneeling on the pew, maybe she would have had more time to keep her daughter from running around).
After deep reflections about how we could become better citizens of God, Carolyn commanded us, in her baritone, husky voice, to us call our parents to tell them how we had behaved (though our moms would be camped outside the school in about a half of an hour). On the other line, my mom answered, and I explained my unfortunate predicament.
"We'll talk about this at home," my mom said. As I held the phone to my ear I realized that she didn't even sound mad... just kind of disappointed. Hanging up the phone, I did feel a little ashamed and ridiculous, even if being called to Carolyn Clark's office was kind of hilarious. Maggie, on the other hand, rolled her eyes when we were allowed to go back to class.
"what a hag," she said, referring to Carolyn, "talks like a man, too." I snickered a little, but only as a courtesy. I began to think, why did I act out at Catechism? Was it a phase that I was starting to pass out of? And, more pressing than anything else, why wasn't my mom fuming mad?
That night, my mom didn't wash my mouth out with soap. She did say that she wished I wouldn't hang out with Maggie anymore during class. Her disappointment was sharper than the suds tickling my tonsils. As I got ready for bed, I stared at the bottle of Soft Soap and thought about how absurd it would be to wash my own mouth out with soap. I didn't, of course, I'm not that stupid or masochistic. I did, however, sit as far as possible away from Maggie in class for the rest of the year.
Despite my fall from grace during that year in Catechism class, I've managed to keep a pretty straight edge, staying away from the Maggies, the smokers, and from substance consumption until binge drinking became a socially acceptable norm my freshman year of college. Unlike my friends, I did not have any eye opening retreat experience in my religious education. My religious education was an old battle ax named Carolyn Clark, a wayward brat named Maggie, and a four hour retreat with a cathartic moment to a Sophie B. Hawkins song. Being a 'good' was not something any class could teach me. I learned this over and over the years through dial soap and "i'm disappointed"s from my mom.
This morning, when I remembered that I had almost washed my mouth out with soap, I thought about my recent behavior and whether or not i could deduce this incident inspired by karma or vodka. I rationalized that it was probably alcohol, as the meanest thing I had done was give some pilot my sister's number, say my name was "Sarah", and lie to him that I was moving to Sweden in two weeks because of the economy. "Family," I told him somberly in the depths of a dark, house-vibrating bar, "I've got no choice but to move back." The man believed me.
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