Kool-Aid Day

There’s a story I’ve hesitated to tell above others

Because of the appeared reflection, it had on my sweet mother

She had nothing to do with the chain of events that day

Blame always gets clouded somewhere along the way

It was a calm beautiful sunny afternoon

Probably the latter part of June

My dad had been working on our house for awhile

Every once in a while he’d look our way and smile

The kitchen window was open you could hear mom tell him

Please be sure to put up your tools where the kids can’t get them

He walked to the back of the house to take something back there

We were busy playing so we weren’t curious enough to care

There were five of us sitting in circles playing with pop bottles

Except for little Jeffy who was still a little toddler

After a while, I saw Robin coming from the back of the house

I didn’t see her even get up she had been quiet as a mouse

She was holding up a container that was half full of orange Kool-Aid 

I wondered where she had gotten it from, it didn’t look like what mama made

She began passing it around filling pop bottles halfway up

I was the last and there wasn’t much left for my pop bottle cup

As my little brothers began to drink the orange delight

From the smell, I knew immediately something wasn’t right

Danny and Joel, we’re coughing and gagging

Robin was pale and to the ground started sagging

I ran screaming to mama that they were dying all over the place

She hit the ground running when she saw them she went white-faced

She grabbed us all up and raced to town in the car

The long eight miles to town never seemed so far

Dr. Saddoris pumped four little stomaches one after the other

I couldn’t help but feel bad for our dear distraught mother

But even more sorry than for my mama I felt for my dad 

when he came home through the door it was going to be bad

To this day I cannot drink Orange drinks a/k/a paint thinner

The day I didn’t drink my orange Kool-Aid, I was the only winner