“'Cause I'm a karate man! And a karate man bruise on the inside! They don't show their weakness.” Billy Ray Valentine "Trading Places"
Y’all know how I feel about Throwback Thursdays, right? I love, love, love them! So when I got up Thursday morning in my rush because you know I was late, I grabbed a bunch of photos to see which would trigger a memory for a blog post. Sadly however, it is not Thursday anymore but hey eff it….keep the party goin’ yes?!
So listen, I ran across this picture of me, my sister, and my grandmother “Mah” on this boat and the look on my face is priceless. There was a random lady there too but who she was, I will never recall, but she is an important part of this story...hey man, y’all know me, bad with faces and names lol. Any who, so this picture instantly reminded me of my relationship with my grandmother simply by looking at it!
Let me explain, my grandmother and I had the strangest relationship, we were extremely close but were like yin-yang. I, often times, didn’t understand her because she could be very southern strict, and my parents were super lenient in most areas (aside from the spankings that were doled out diligently). So, my personality naturally rebelled with what her personality naturally restricted. So we spent a lot of moments at odds when I was a kid. Oddly, what seemed rigid to me then, as I got older I realized was really more of a tradition, and I truly learned to appreciate it and love it. So back then our personalities often clashed especially since I spent every summer in Tennessee.
Speaking of the South, while I’m at it, let me give you a tutorial on the south in the 80’s. My grandparents were old school southerners, so you know it was taught to us that a child should know his/her place i.e. speak when spoken to (please note: this has never stopped me, but just know the world of trouble I stayed in as a kid) But also, there were rules of how you acted in public ESPECIALLY around “mixed” company. You were to behave your best at all times, it was likened to inviting complete strangers in your home (who may or may not like you I might add) and not putting the good table cloth on the table, knowing fully well you eat in the living room on TV trays. Hahaha! Anyway, there was a certain behavior that’s supposed to be had in said “mixed” company.
Okay, so back to “el photograph”, here we are on a boat on a lake which is seemingly in Nobodygivesafuck, TN., it looks like everyone is having a marvelous time until you scan to my face and I have the hardest deadpan face a child can ever have. So now let me tell you why….my grandmother announced to the entire boat that I was scared and therefore needed to sit on her lap. I was clearly, say 7/8 years old, and back then and quietly, I had no fear. I wasn’t afraid of heights, I wasn’t afraid of death, I wasn’t afraid of homeless people and crazies (oh that’s a real fear)… I wasn’t afraid of anything. I mean, not really. So she lied. Yup, as adults do, SHE was the one scared, and used me as a scapegoat. THE MINERVA! Hahaha!
If you’ve been following this blog, by now you’ll know I was quite the outspoken one as a kid (see “Finding the Voice Within”), I mean once my grandmother lied on me and I DID announced it to the room” I remember it like it was yesterday, “Mah, you’re telling a lie.” Wheeeeew chile, can I tell you how swift the hammer was dropped on me after that one? I can still feel the chill in the air when my mom said “Excuse yourself to the bathroom.” Oh lord….I thought I was safe…I couldn’t imagine what she could spank me with seeing as she had no belt…well that is until that Isotoner Slipper came off. Oh Wee, ain’t nothing worse than rubber on skin…trust me on this one! She cornered me in that little bathroom and tore my tail up. But peep my gangster though, when I came out, my mom said apologize and my response “I’m sorry for calling you a lie Mah, when you….lied” hahahaha
***Please believe my grandmother is somewhere in heaven mad I’m telling this story! Hahaha! But I find comfort in it because up until the day she died, I used to say to her “But remember that time you lied though..” it was like our own private joke (of sorts)…that lady knew she lied and let me get the summer stomped out of me for it. Smh! ***
Okay, I know what you’re thinking… “Uh Oh, Nika…” right?! Listen, I was bad. My friend has this saying that they used to say about her mom “too cute to beat”…ha! I was cute and I got beatings….it was more like “too cute, please beat” Bwaaahaha! But on this particular day I didn’t say anything! Surprise, Surprise! (okay, I may have said a “ummm nu uh, Mah??” because it looks like she was doing one of her sly pinches) The reality was, I was bad, but I wasn’t stupid!
Aye yo, a picture says a thousand words and this picture says if you so much as call me a liar in front of this “stranger of mixed company”, I will throw you overboard and forget you ever existed. So in the end, I just sat my too big tail on her lap and stared in to the camera with a silent plea…
Help. Me.
Moral of this story: Sometimes you just have to take one for the team.
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