Emailed to me by a friend (Thanks, Beulah)
(A true account)
Long before the term "attitude adjustment" came into being, I recall mom’s
special ruler hanging from a nail in the kitchen next to the fly swatter.
When I was bad, I got spanked; when I was *really* bad, my bottom would
make sudden contact with the smooth-sanded tool.
Somewhere between Seattle and Tokyo, while crossing the Pacific in an
ocean liner, I found mom’s ruler hiding inside our stateroom’s desk drawer.
Oh, what a discovery! Only four years old and I had already grasped the
"IF-THEN" axiom concept: [IF] I was bad, [THEN] I got my bare buttocks
smacked by that ruler.
Fortunately, there was a private laundry chute built right into the
stateroom compartment wall, where passengers conveniently deposited their
dirty laundry as well as other occasional items. What a shock it was when
our fresh laundry was returned a day later with the uncommonly clean ruler
sitting on the top of the pile.
"You lose something, Mrs. Lee?" asked the room steward, grinning.
"Not at all," replied mom, eyeing me in the way mothers sometimes do.
"I just temporarily misplaced it."