Repressed Memory
When I was in high school, I was a member of the concert band. During my sophomore year, the band boosters bought all the female members of concert band long, black skirts for the concert. All of the skirts were the same length: very long. When the band moms handed them out to us, they told us to take the skirts home to have our mothers hem them to the proper length.
I took my skirt home and told Marlene what the band moms said. She hung the skirt off the high kitchen cabinets and said she'd "take care of it".
It hung there for a week.
I started to get desperate. "Mom," I pleaded, "The concert is Sunday. Will you hem my skirt?"
I woke up on Sunday morning to find the skirt considerably shorter. It was not hemmed, though. You see, she started to hem it, but got frustrated, so she took out a pair of kitchen shears and just cut it down to size.
"The band moms are going to kill me!" I told her, as she made me try on my skirt in the kitchen. She wanted to see if it's short enough. I started to cry. "They're going to make us pay for the skirt," I cried.
"No," my mom said firmly. "We can't afford to pay for the skirt."
"Well, what are we going to do?" I sobbed.
"Just tell them that we already turned it in when they ask," she said simply.
At the end of the year, when one of the band mom's asked where my skirt was, I told her I already turned it in. She believed me.
But I've felt cruddy about it since.
