Tina M Ledford, GPC Student

Locked In

While growing up, my brother, sister, and I spent every weekday with my grandmother and my great-grandparents, while our mother worked second shift at Rock Tenn. I spent all day with my grandmother while my brother and sister went off to school. I was still too young to attend school, so I would run and play all day until my brother and sister got off the school bus. Then we would all play cops and robbers until time for supper. After supper and baths, we would all gather in the living room to listen to my great-grandmother tell stories of her life as a child.

Listening to her stories transported us all to a different time and place. The story we all wanted to hear over and over was about the time she spent the night locked inside the outhouse. She always began her story with a chuckle, and her cheeks would slowly turn bright red from embarrassment as she started to talk.

She always began saying that a lady should not talk of such things but she would, just this once. Her stomach was terribly upset one evening after everyone in the house was asleep. So she crept out of bed and scurried to the far corner of the backyard to use the outhouse.

Reaching the outhouse, she turned the block of wood that served to keep the door closed when unoccupied. She stepped inside the small shack and the pungent order filled her nostrils. She turned the inside matching block of wood to lock the door just in case she was not the only one with an upset stomach.

She sat down to do her business and that is when she heard, thud! She knew exactly what the sound was as soon as she heard it. She was locked in! She did not even check the door until she was finished and her stomach felt better. When she gathered all her courage she unlatched the inside of the door and pushed and just as she expected, she was stuck.

She tried to squeeze her finger between the boards so she could move the outside block of wood, but her finger was too large. She tried throwing her body against the door, but that only hurt her shoulder. She tried kicking the door, but without her shoes that only hurt her feet. She was stuck until someone let her out. She found herself wishing that someone else in the house would need to go and rescue her. But, her rescue did not occur until the next morning. There she sat all alone in the dark. She could hear crickets chirping, and the wind blowing. The odor that filled her nostrils began to burn her eyes. She tried to pass the time by singing church songs to herself. After she sang every song she knew she would start all over. When her throat began to hurt, she decided to stop singing. Unable to sleep, she watched through the cracks in the walls as the sun began to rise the next morning.

She sat all night in the outhouse until her father came out the next morning. When he saw her, he began laughing. To her amazement he hugged her and said he would fix the lock so that it could be unlocked from the inside because mom had rescued him just the day before. They both laughed.

By this time, my siblings and I roll on the living room floor laughing. My grandmother then would lead us down the hallway to bed. As each of us passed the bathroom we were very thankful that outhouses were no longer necessary.