Including the Kitchen Sink

Griff, This is my first memory. Let me know if I'm too heavy on description. This is fun (sortta).


SCENE: Nighttime, the view is a bird’s-eye view of the top of the maple tree in the front yard. As the view moves over the tree, it lowers to the front of the house. The moon-lit shadows of the maple leaves danced across the light-green painted cedar shingles that the side of the old house was adorned with. There was no front porch to speak of; rather, there was a set of old rickety steps leading up the front door that was placed in the middle of the west end (front) of the house. To the right of the front door was the window next to the kitchen table. It was a large window that was nearly six feet wide and three feet tall. It was made up of several smaller panes with wood frames connecting them together. It was loosely hung and would rattle a little with the breeze. As the view moves through the window, it pans to the left, to the north wall of the large kitchen. The north wall of the kitchen was mostly counter space and cupboards with the sink being in the middle of the wall. A smaller but similar window is located above the sink.

There stood Eleanor (Ellie), bathing her young child, in the kitchen sink. She was wearing a mostly white floral-patterned dress that was hemmed just below her knees. There was a green bath towel draped over her left shoulder.

She was in her mid-to late twenties, very pretty, with her brunette hair fashioned in the style of the times (1950’s). She wore large-rimmed glasses and was humming a tune. It was a tune that just flowed from her heart and not a song, really. Her right hand firmly gripped the back of her infant-to-toddler son, Charles. She cupped her left hand and scooped the warm water from the sink and would dribble it gently over the top of Charles’ head. Her loving manner comforted him.

Suddenly, the room goes dark. The fuse to the kitchen circuit burned out.

ELLIE: Oh dear!

Charles: too young to grasp what was happening.

ELLIE: Now you stay put Charles, mommy has to go fix the light.

Charles sat there in a completely unfamiliar world. The darkness was scary in a way, but the warmth of the sink water, and the residual love of his mother’s presence, was a source of security that kept him calm.

Charles’ attention was drawn to the right end of the kitchen counter. The east wall of the kitchen that separated it from the living room. The fuse box was located to the right of the old wood-stove in the living room. That put it in the same corner (but on the other side of the wall) of the kitchen counter.

As Ellie fumbled with the fuses, the noise drew Charles’ attention to the living room wall. On the wall was an electrical outlet. The outlet had no protective plate covering it.

The lights flickered a bit, and then came on. Charles crawled out from the sink and across the kitchen counter toward the living room wall. He was focused on the outlet. As he was just about to put his finger into the wall-socket, Ellie snatched him up.

ELLIE: (Gasps deeply, and then sighs.) No! Never touch that or anything like that again! (she slaps his hands as only a mother could do)

She takes the towel from her shoulder and wraps Charles in it. She moves across the linoleum-covered kitchen floor and sat down at the kitchen table then vigorously dried him off.