I believe it was around junior high. My mother was making dinner and my siblings and I were sitting around the kitchen table, as per usual being barbarians of sorts. I’m sure my little brother was talking about gross boogery things and my sister and I were whining for him to stop lest we wrestle him to the ground and smack him around a bit (this of course being justifiable and with righteous intent.) Little brothers are of course skilled at the art of the obnoxious and creepy. His favorite move was to slip his cold gross little pre-teen feet up your pant leg under the table. It is equal parts shocking and disturbing. This was no doubt happening at the table then, which I’m sure would have resulted in additional smackings of said brother.
Being that we were so wrapped up in our own little world of squabbling and chatter, I neglected to see my mother approaching the table behind me with a boiling hot pot of vegetable beef soup. Unfortunately, this was the precise moment that I decided to exit the dinner table. I rose suddenly from my chair and my head greeted the pot with a clang, which caused a sudden outpouring of soup lava all over my head and back.
Fire.
It ran down my neck accompanied by my own shrieks and squawks as I was being slain by liquid food. I panicked and started running around the room in terror.
“Get over here! Stick your head in the sink!!” my mother shouted.
“NNOOO!! AAAHHH! IT BURNS! AAaaAHH!” I replied.
“PUT YOUR HEAD IN THE KITCHEN SINK AND TURN THE WATER ON! COME HERE!” she bellowed.
But my response, sensibly of course was, “AAAHhhH! But it’s dirty! There’s dishes and gross dishwater IN THEEERRE! OOWW! AH! I DON’T WANT MY HEAD IN THERE!!”
My logical reasoning skills were clearly skewed at the time. Of course my first thought was not,”Hey, that seems like a sound plan of action. My head is currently being cooked by residual heat from soup broth, and cold water would counter act said high temperatures. I will go to this sink that you speak of, and resolve this problem.” It instead was that there was gross dishwater and old food bits in the sink, and that I would not have myself placed in proximity with it, given the chance that it could make contact with my head. Ironic choice though since my hair already boasted an impressive collection of carrots, barley, and beef chunks.
My father then grabbed me from my scuttling about the kitchen screaming, and stuck my head into the dreaded sink. Sweet resolve as cold sink hose water ran over my head, yet disgust as my face was inches away from wet bread scraps (wet bread is universally confirmed as the grossest type of food scrap known to man.) Luckily there was no permanent damaged done, with the exception of a lifelong fear of soup… and of a clammy foot up my pant leg.
