The Little Girl That Exploded!

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Connie…. She was a pretty good little girl, but every once in awhile, she would get into mischief…

Connie was about 5 or 6 years old and she lived on a farm with her mom and dad, two older brothers, Jimmy and Donnie and her older sister, Mimi. Her brother, Jimmie was very good at making homemade root beer and homemade ice cream. Both were very good! 

One afternoon Jimmy had made some homemade ice cream and a big batch of root beer. It was a warm day so they decided to have a special treat --- ‘black cows’. Do you know what a ‘black cow’ is? A black cow is when you take a glass of root beer and put a scoop of ice cream in it. It is also sometimes called a ‘root beer float’.

Well Jimmy made black cows for everyone and everyone was eating all that they could of the yummy treat! Little Connie loved the taste of the black cow…. It was soooo good! After her first one, she had another… and another…. And another…. She had ice cream and then some more root beer and then some root beer with a little more ice cream and so on …. It was so good…. But….all of a sudden little Connie did not feel so good. He stomach was starting gurgle and churn…. Oooooh…. She did not feel well at all!!!

Back in those days, there were no bathrooms in the houses. Instead there were ‘outhouses’. An outhouse is a little shack with only one door on it. Inside there was a little bench with a hole cut in it where you would sit if you needed to go to the bathroom. Sometimes there were two holes (so a second person could use the outhouse at the same time). A ‘two-holer’ was a fancy outhouse and on Connie’s farm, there was a two-holer. Also, in those days, there was no toilet paper like we have now. Instead, people would use a sheet of paper torn out of a catalog like ‘JC Penney’ or ‘Sears-Roebuck’…. These catalogs would also be read while you were doing your ‘business’ (thus came the saying ‘shop ‘till you drop’)….

Poor little Connie felt the need to use the outhouse right away – she felt as if she were ready to EXPLODE! So she ran to the outhouse, sat down and EXPLODED! It felt as if the root beer and ice cream were BOILING inside of her! OOOOOH she felt so awful she knew that she was going to die! She rocked back and forth is shear misery and thought how unfair it was for a little girl to die this way….. and then it happened…. When she thought it could not get worse, it did…the ice cream and root beer came UP and out….. aaaaargh, she went into the second ‘hole’ of the outhouse…. Now she was exploding in two directions…. Oh how terrible!

Little Connie kept exploding for a while and she sat there in between times waiting for death to come. She did not feel like catalog shopping – she was too sick for that. She sat there motionless, drained….. she felt sure that all her insides were now on the outside - and that her heart, lungs, intestines, everything….was in the basement of the outhouse along with all that homemade root beer and ice cream. She sat there and waited to die….

While she waited she saw a little spider in the corner of the outhouse. Normally Connie was afraid of spiders, but not today. She sat there and looked at the spider and thought to herself – that little spider (it was a ‘daddy long legs’) is going to be the last living creature to see me alive…. After a while, she began to talk to the spider…. ‘tell my daddy and mommy that I love them and I am going to miss them’…. And ‘tell my brothers and sister that I love them too’…. She told the spider other things too as she waited in the outhouse for death to come.

After a while, she heard a voice…. ‘Connie…. Connie…. Where are you??? Are you in there?’ At first Connie thought that the angels had come to get her… but it wasn’t angel voices that she heard, no – it was her mother’s voice…. Her mother had come to the outhouse looking for little Connie. Connie told her mommy what had happened and explained that she had exploded and now was waiting there to die…. Her mama assured her that she had not really exploded even though she felt that way. Then her mama helped her get up to the house and into her bed. Connie laid there a long time – exhausted….and drained!

As it turned out, Connie had just eaten too much of the powerful homemade root beer and rich, fresh ice cream. It was more than a little girl’s system could handle – but it was all ‘out’ now and she didn’t die. Connie is not a little girl any longer and in fact she is an ‘old lady’ now. She still remembers her EXPLODING experience and even after all these years, she does NOT drink any more ‘black cows’!!!!

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