I didn't experience this first hand, however, I saw the aftermath and me and my twin sister (Rhonda) still talk about it to this day; twenty one years later.
Rhonda and I were 18 years old at the time and in our second semester of our Senior year. That particular morning, Rhonda woke up and just didn't feel good. She hadn't slept well the night before and was just going to stay home. I had a test I had to take, so I had no choice but to go. Mama, of course, was a bit ticked that she was staying home. Mama always worried that we had missed too many days or was 'really going to be sick' one day and have to miss more days of school. Mama tried to persuade Rhonda to go on but she was having nothing of it... Her mind was made up. She wished me luck on my test and out the door I went. Mama and Daddy owned and operated a full service gas station about a 1/2 mile from the house. Daddy had already left the house around 8:00 AM that morning and Mama was in the bathroom getting ready; Rhonda was in her room.
Rhonda's bedroom was down the hall, first door on the right. My bedroom was the second door on the right and Mama and Daddy's bedroom was almost at the end of the hall on the left. The bathroom was directly at the end of the hallway. Our bedrooms and the bathroom had a traditional door with the door knob that had the little round hole in it. Mama and Daddy's bedroom doors however, were a little different. They were two separate little doors that had to be closed from inside of the room. They were slick on the hallway side. To close the doors, you had to shut the left one first and then the right one because the right one had a little lip on it that sealed the crease when both of them were shut.
Rhonda heard Mama stomp down the hallway and slam the door. Mama heard Rhonda stomp down the hallway and slam the door. Mama came out of the bathroom saying, "I told you not to slam that damn door"! Rhonda came out of her room saying, "Dang it Mama, don't be so upset, it's just one day"! They both stopped dead in their tracks.
Jutting out into the hallway was Mama and Daddy's bedroom doors. Remember when I talked about the one door having the lip on it and should go last? It actually went first and caused the other door to be jammed on the wrong side of that lip. Rhonda had to put all of her weight against the doors just to get them back open. Both hinges at the top of the doors had come out of the wall so now, the doors just barely hung on the frame. They both scanned the room slowly, listening carefully. Nothing. They heard nothing. They saw nothing. The bedroom window was open about 4 inches. Rhonda walked over to the window and peered out of it, thinking a sudden storm might have come up. The sky was blue, not a leaf on a tree was moving, the weather was just as calm as it could be. On the window sill lay the little white banner from a Hershey Kiss. Rhonda pursed her lips together and gently blew through them... The paper fluttered up and fell to the floor. It clearly wasn't the wind through the open window that had slammed the doors. Then again... Wind doesn't go stomping down a hallway either. They both clearly heard loud angry footsteps before the doors were slammed.
Needless to say, Mama finished getting ready and now Rhonda was getting ready to go with her to the Station. When they arrived, they told Daddy about it and he went back down there to take a look at the doors. When he got back to the Station, he told them that it took a lot of force to slam those doors hard enough to tear the hinges out of the wall. He doubted that he could have even done it.
We can only guess that whatever is in the house either wanted to be alone that day or was just simply upset that Mama and Rhonda were at odds with each other that morning. In either case, the slamming of the doors worked; Rhonda left with Mama that morning and they weren't upset with each other any longer...
Loading comments....
