When I was around 7, my mother attempted to wash my mouth out with soap.

It was wintertime, and we lived then in New York. Later that day I knew we were due to see the doctor for (yuck) vaccines of some sort, but we had the morning to play.

Mom warned us not to eat snow.

She must have been having a problem about it, because she was specific in her threat: she’d wash my mouth out with soap if she caught me eating any snow.

Well, what could I do? The snow was fresh and shining white with flecks of reflected sun. Telling a kid not to eat snow is like telling her not to pee in the pool.

Mom caught me. She decided to make an example of me, or show me she really meant the threat; she hauled me inside and into the bathroom where next thing I knew she was not only yanking me around but shoving the white bar of soap at my face and ordering me to take a bite. I didn’t know how biting fit into the washing idea but I could tell she was on the edge, so I bit, and I removed a chunk of the soap with my teeth. It felt like it was half the size of a regular marshmallow. Mom was right there so I couldn’t spit it out, and I sure wasn’t going to chew it; I put my energy into the swallow.

It felt like the chunk got caught halfway down. Maybe it did, or maybe it just scraped my throat so it felt like it was stuck. The aftereffect was quite unpleasant.

Then Mom took me and Steve to Parker Doctor. Of course he was Dr. Parker, but we reversed his name between us like some kind of private joke.

I endured a shot in the behind while suffering a lump of soap in my throat.

It was not a good day. And it didn’t cure me of eating snow.