This was a writing exercise for ‘Six Sentences” where the posts are supposed to be exactly, well, six sentences.  It’s wayyy harder than it sounds, and leads to some very creative punctuation:

The worst trouble I’d ever gotten into were the times she thought evil had befallen her only daughter.

The first time I remember was the afternoon I called out to her, through Dad’s winter coat and my snowsuit, to let her know I’d locked myself in the closet and needed her to rescue me and no, I was NOT lying at the bottom of the basement stairs with a broken neck.

Then there was the time, while taking huge steps through the fresh mud with my red rubber boots and brand new socks, the left boot got stuck in the ooze and I yelled for help because I knew if the perfectly clean white sock came into the house covered with wet brown dirt, there would be hell to pay. And no, I was NOT about to be swallowed up by quick mud (in the middle of Ohio).

By adulthood our roles reversed, as evidenced by the time an ostrich got loose from the petting zoo and barreled down the Fort Steuben Mall towards us and she dealt with it by using me – her only offspring and light of her life (allegedly) as a shield, for cryin’ out loud.

She would have been eighty-three today.

Colorado, 1977