D is for Master of My Domain

 

I am in the process of sorting through everything in my parents' home, and in so doing, I have been looking through all my childhood memorabilia, the majority of which I hadn't seen since my parents packed up my belongings and moved them from the home I grew up in to this house some 45 years ago. My 2024 A to Z Challenge theme is based on the treasures I have found in the boxes and the drawers and closets. Join me on my bittersweet journey back to my childhood.

We moved from our 900 s.f., three bedroom, one bath home to an 1100 s.f., three bedroom, TWO bathroom home the summer after I finished 6th grade. Our new house seemed huge by comparison, and with the second bathroom, my brother and I no longer had to share with Mr. Don't Touch My Razor and Mrs. Half A Can Of Aqua Net Hair Spray Every Day.

I was pretty low maintenance when we first moved into the house, but once I started junior high that fall, here came the baby blue eye shadow and lip gloss and hot rollers. I also camped out in there and got lost reading multiple chapters of books when I was "unavoidably delayed."* My brother was in high school and, it seems, had little patience for this, for one day, after an (allegedly) exceedingly long time in our shared bathroom, I heard him messing around outside the door, snickering and then running off, and I opened the door to find this sign taped to it: 

Believe it or not, considering its current condition, the
sign was made on a white 3x5 index card.

I was REALLY, REALLY, REALLY mad. First of all, I didn't know what "domain" meant. Second, whatever it meant, I knew it wasn't intended to be a compliment. Third, my mother was laughing at the sign, too, and I felt betrayed.

I can't believe I didn't snatch it off the door, and maybe I did (my brother will have to weigh in on that), but if I did, it was replaced, and the sign remained for the 7 years we lived in that house. Then sentimental soul that she was, my mom took it off the door in 1979, and damned if she didn't hang it on my bathroom door in their new house! I took it down last weekend and tucked it in a box and then hung it on MY bathroom door in my house.

Know what?

It STILL makes me mad to see it!

*If you've never read the book Cheaper By The Dozen by Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Jr., and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, get your hands on a copy, and you will find yourself quoting from it, too.