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34
Back Porch
were drenched. About this time I began to notice that where there was once “a hint of chemical odor,” there was now an extremely strong odor coming from my wet-drippy hair.
Mama spied the house of someone she knew slightly, and we sloshed toward it. I came dragging along behind her because I sure didn't want to go into that house stinking like what I thought a wet, irate skunk might smell like.
A short little woman invited us in and gave us towels with which to dry off. She didn’t have a car to take us home but said we were welcome to stay until the rain stopped. So there we sat, me with
sad, soggy, stinky little curls and Mama with her brand new, dry clean only dress. The lady sat across from us and tried to make us feel comfortable. At the same time,
I	could see her nose wrinkling up, but out of politeness she said nothing about the dreadful odor. Three small, shy children with big round eyes sat on the floor and stared at us.
Then we noticed a peculiar thing about Mama’s dress; it seemed to be getting shorter. Soon the dress was above her plump little knees, at a period of time when ladies didn’t show their knees in public, at least my mother didn’t. The lady and her children had forgotten about my stinky
hair in their fascination with the shrinking dress.
It was a relief to all when the rain ended so we could resume our walk home. When we reached the old, gray house, it had never looked so good to us as it did then.
Mama had to throw her dress away, and my curls, well, they survived and eventually lost their pungent odor. Later, much later, we remembered this day with laughter.
If everything had gone smoothly that day, it would have been like countless thousands of other foggy memories. But, because of what happened, it is forever etched in my mind as a warm, funny experience.
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