Discipline Experiment

I still can’t believe I was swearing at that age; though up until grade two I was in a pretty feral school.

I was in grade one and was sitting on the school bus going home. I made a new friend and we were telling jokes and being silly, making up words for fun. My older brother was sitting up the back. I thought I was clever and had made up a funny new swear word (which consisted of two pre-existing swearwords) so I tried it out on my brother (quite loudly). He was really embarrassed because he was sitting with all of his friends and he was in grade six at the time. When we got home my brother told mum what I had said. She said she would have to wash my mouth out and took me into the bathroom. When she said to open my mouth, for some reason I expected her to put a lolly in my mouth (so stupid) so I closed my eyes and opened my mouth rather willingly… I can still remember the taste of the soap. I got such a shock that I started crying and sobbing, and my brother ended up feeling bad and telling mum to leave me alone. It only happened once, so I think it was just an experiment because mum didn’t really know what to do with me. It worked though, for the next few years if I ever swore I could taste soap. Very curious.