Excerpted Inspirations #50

"We were making pumpkin pie -- you know, one of those educational projects where you do it from scratch and it only takes five hours and no one will eat it when it's done. We had already had one huge battle over who could hack the pumpkin to bits with what deadly weapon. Pumpkin slime everywhere. Then the doorbell rang and I had to leave them with the electric beaters up to their gills in orange glop. Just as I came back, Mark lifted the beaters high into the air, calling out, 'Is this good, Mommy?' -- throwing wads of pumpkin everywhere. I was covered with thick welts of dripping pumpkin. They were laughing so hard they were crying. For them it was wonderful, rich, crazy 'revenge' -- to scold me, undress and wash me and warn me never to play in the pumpkin again."

-Quoted anonymously in The Boston Women's Health Collective, Ourselves and Our Children (1978), p. 56