This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
When I was 10 years old, I called my younger brother an [deleted]. He carried this to the Old Man, who immediately summoned me into the house where he was fixing the washing machine.
Him: "Do you know what '[that word]' means?"
Me: "Yeah, the hole in his bottom. But he—!"
Before I could finish, the Old Man scooped up some laundry detergent and crammed it into my mouth, holding it shut while taking the long way around warning me not to say that word again.
Bad as it was, I counted myself lucky. When he reached for the soap, I thought he was going for the "free steak knife" that came in every economy box of Blue Cheer.
There was no %#@*& cheer in it for me. For the next 72 hours, everything tasted like soap.
I don't know how you feel about discipline of that sort. From personal experience, I can tell you that it works. I never called my little brother that word again. Instead, I just beat the $#&%! out of him whenever he annoyed me.
Last week, a Harrisburg, Pa., teacher washed out a 10-year-old boy's mouth with soap after he argued with another student. Lots of people are upset about what they view as abuse.
Maybe. Maybe not. The school isn't planning on doing anything to the teacher, and the Harrisburg police say it's not a crime to scrub a tongue with soap.
That's how it was when I was a kid. If soap-a-dope were a crime with no statute of limitations, my parents would be in prison for the rest of their lives. I grew up on soap. Bar, pellets, liquid, powder — they all had their pros and cons.
Depending on how mad the Old Man was, bar was my least favorite. Holding me in a headlock, he'd vigorously work it around my gums and all the way back to my tonsils, making sure to scrape large chunks onto my molars.
Note: I don't even want to think about what it would have been like had I needed braces back then.
Orthodontist: "Goodness, your mouth smells sunshine fresh, Bobby."
Me: "Well it tastes like [deleted]."
My second-least-favorite was powdered laundry soap. Depending on how much he forced in, it was possible to inhale Duz, Cheer, Tide, or whatever was on sale that week.
You haven't been effectively soap disciplined until you've sneezed out 20 Mule Team Borax.
I'm quite sure this all sounds shocking to some parents, particularly those currently raising (or who have raised) tender-hearted and easily malleable children, youngsters compliant to the point of dimwittedness.
Fortunately for you, that wasn't me. More than once I heard the Old Man accuse my mother of having invited Satan to the house for sleepovers while he was gone.
I don't hold any soap discipline grudges today. I had all of that (and more) coming. I do have strong feelings about who gets to administer it, though. So did my father.
If that had been me getting soaped in Harrisburg, the teacher would have come to appreciate the instructive qualities of toilet bowel cleaner.
Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.