I just took a hot bath.  Not just a hot bath, but a HOT bath. I love them so hot that I have to ease in slowly…sometimes pulling my leg out for a minute and putting it back in because the water is so hot.  Once I get one leg in, I start the same process with the other.  Then I slowly ease the rest of my body in bit by bit.  Tonight when the bottom and mid-section went in, I channeled by Granny Davis.  I heard the words “Lord A Mercy!” come out of my mouth!  That’s southern for “Lord Have Mercy” for those that don’t know.  That bath water was hottttttt!  Tonight so many memories came back to me…maybe they were boiled out of me.

When I take a hot bath, I usually stay in about an hour as I’m reading a magazine.    When I get out my whole body is as red as can be.  Art would always comment about how red I was and that it worried him.  I would come staggering out sometimes when it was extra hot and I felt faint from the heat, and I would throw a towel on the floor in the bedroom under the ceiling fan as I cooled off.   He thought I was crazy.

I lived with Sissie and Uncle Bill most of the time between the age of 16 and 18, and Sissie got me hooked on hot baths.   She worked in a hosiery mill in High Point.  Her job was to take the socks that had been sewn and slide them over a steaming hot, foot-shaped metal form to give the sock a final pressing.  In doing that, she had to touch the forms to some degree to press the sock smooth as well as putting in on and taking it off the mold.  That woman’s hands got so used to the heat that it was amazing.  I think she could have put them in a fire without a lot of pain.

Every night after dinner Sissie would take her bath.  Afterwards she would run my bath for me while she dried off and put on her moisturizer.  That bath water was always scalding hot because her hands were so heat resistance she wasn’t aware she was about to boil me alive.  I learned to do the same “ease into it routine” that I do now and came to love those scalding hot bathes most of the time.

While I was in the tub, in addition to bathing I always relaxed and read a magazine.  As a result, I was generally in the hot water quite a while.  One particular instance, I guess I was in the tub too long, or Sissie got the water extra hot.  I suddenly started feeling woozy.  I started getting out of the tub and realized I was about to faint.  I grabbed the edge of the tub and lay down on the floor before I fell.

I tried calling Sissie, but my voice was so weak it took several tries for her to hear me because she was in the living room watching TV.  She finally heard me and came in.  So there I am, in my 16 or 17 year old nakedness.  It was a bit embarrassing but I was too weak to care. The bathroom was tiny.  There wasn’t much room to maneuver and I was fading in out of consciousness.  Then it happened…I hear Sissie say “Lord God! Bill get in here.  Rose Mary has fainted.  Help me get her up!”

Oh my gosh!  It was horrible enough to be sprawled out naked in front of my aunt, but now my uncle is coming in!  I was conscious enough to be aware that I was in a humiliating situation and that my sweet uncle is now going to see my naked body.  I’ll never be able to look him in the face again.  I remember looking up and seeing Uncle Bill come in and reach for me, but nothing else.

I came to later in my bed, covered with a sheet and a cool rag on my forehead.  Bless their hearts, it was never mentioned after that.  I think they knew it was humiliating for me.

As I think about it, I had another humiliating situation with them.  I was spending the weekend with them once before I moved in. I was about 13. I had another aunt and uncle with no children (Aunt Louise and Uncle Allen).  The two couples did a lot of things together since they were the only ones in the family who were childless.

That weekend Aunt Louise and Uncle Allen came over and we all went to a revival meeting together at the church.  Barney Pierce was the minister.  As I recall he wasn’t a large man and a little frail looking, but this man could preach.  My father always said that if any man could get him to believe in God it would be Barney Pierce.  He preached a sermon that night that scared the pure living beejeezus out of me.  Tons of hell fire and brimstone!  As I sat there and listened I was thinking “I’m going to burn in hell.”  Me at 13, I think I’m going to hell.  I think of every time I “back talked” Mom or Dad, or any lie I told….man, I’m going to hell!  I was so scared I went up for the altar call even though I had been baptized years ago.

On the ride home the aunts and uncles were talking about what a great sermon it was.  I was still planning how I can wear some fire proof uniform from now on.  I was terrified.  I’m going to hell!   We got back to Sissie’s and I had to go to the bathroom.  As I pulled down my panties, there it was BLOOD!!  I’m dying and going to hell!  The fear had impacted my mind so badly I wasn’t thinking straight.  I was shaking!  Finally amid the panic, reality set in and I realized I had started my first period.

Okay, so I’m not going to hell right now, but I do have an even bigger problem.  I need some kind of feminine product.  I look around in the bathroom to see what Sissie had…I couldn’t find a thing.  Finally I had to call out to Sissie again.  I called “Sissie, can you please come in here…alone??”  She came in and I just pointed to my panties.  She looked fearful…which didn’t help me any.  Then she said “You knew this was supposed to happen didn’t you?”  When I said I did, the fear disappeared and she went in and got me a sanitary belt, pad and clean panties. (Oh the girls today don’t know what they are missing!)  I got all situated and started to leave the bathroom walking like I had a watermelon between my legs.

My mind is on my walking as I try to get used to the pad strapped to me.  So as I enter the room trying to walk normally and hoping no one will notice or know what just happened, Sissie announces to the whole room (including my two uncles), “Rose Mary is a little woman now!”  I turned quickly and went to my room with my face red as a beet, waddling like a bowlegged cowboy who had been riding the range for a month!

I thought I would die of embarrassment, but I couldn’t do that because I had hell fire and brimstone waiting for me.

Isn’t it amazing the moments we survive in life…especially as teens.  Life gets rough sometimes…it doesn’t just give you lemons…sometimes it pelts you with them.  But through it all we survive and if we’re lucky we can look back and smile.  But every once in a while I do think I might smell brimstone. 😉