I can remember, fondly,
when I was a youngster,
(what age was that, anyway?)
that I would, sometimes,
get in trouble,
as little boys were known to do.
Sometimes I would be told
to go and get a switch,
and I would go out to the back yard,
find the thinnest, tiny branch I could,
and take it to my aunt.
She would look sternly
over the top of her glasses,
and tell me that this was going to hurt her
more than it would me...
and she would take the switch,
and swat my bottom with it,
although I remember thinking
that her eyesight must have been bad,
because most of the hits ended up on her hand,
rather than where I would have thought they would.
Oh, a few hit the right place,
but most of them were captured by her hand,
or her knee, and sometimes she missed everything entirely.
I chalked it up to luck, and to her bad eyesight.
She would then tell me to go stand in the corner,
which I would do, and she made me stay there
until I got so tired that I ended up sitting on the floor,
still facing into the corner, however.
At that point she would tell me that I could sit on the couch
until supper was ready,
or lunch, or whatever event was next
in her schedule.
Sometimes it was until it was time to go for a walk,
or to go to the store,
or just to go visit the lady up the street,
who was an old friend and smelled of lavender.
Everytime, however,
that I got into any sort of trouble,
my aunt would lecture me
on the danger of my behavior,
warning me to mend my ways,
or else I might one day end up
hanged, or worse.
(What could be worse than that?)
And she would always, always,
admonish me...
"If you think you can get away with that sort of behavior,
young man,
if you think that I'll put up with that,
young man,
then you've got another think coming."

One day, sadly,
my aunt died.
And I never did get all those thinks that I had coming.
Or, maybe I did...

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