Whats UP down South

My mother worked when we were growing up so my sisters and I were expected to do most of the housework. One morning as she was leaving for work, she told us that the living room had better be spotless when she came home.

We played around all morning but decided it might be in our best interest to get busy and do the cleaning after lunch (those willow switches left a remarkable impression on young minds and their behinds). We dusted and swept the hardwood floor and decided that it needed a little more cleaning so we found ammonia and a wire brush in a cabinet beneath the kitchen sink and got busy scrubbing. When we were finished, you could have eaten a meal off that floor!

I was in my room when mom came in from work. When she screamed I thought something really bad had happened and ran to the living room where I found her sitting on the couch shaking her head and crying. How were we to know that you shouldn't scrub hardwood floors? We'd cleaned it so well that we'd stripped it down to the bare wood.

We escaped the willow switch that day but I think it was only because she was too weak from shock.