That time my dad washed my mouth out with soap

Have you ever wondered what soap tastes like? I did, too—until I had my mouth washed out with it. 

I was eight years old. As I write this, sixty-one years later, I can still taste that bar of Dial soap in my mouth. Along with the equally distinct tastes of confusion, humiliation, and violation. 

Aren't you glad you use Dial...to wash your kid's filthy mouth out?

The infraction that led to this "spiritual cleansing"? I had uttered the evidently blasphemous epithet "Gol." Which, back then, was short for "Golly." Which, as everyone knew except for eight-year-old me, was a euphemism for "God."

I don't remember to whom I was talking when I said the allegedly blasphemous thing, but whomever it was, he/she told one of my siblings (again, no recollection), and that sibling told my dad. Who was, unfortunately for me, a Christian conservative who still believed in the 19th-century practice of washing allegedly blasphemous mouths out with soap.

Oddly, it wasn't my dad who initially informed me that my mouth was going to be washed out with soap. It was his dad...my grandpa. Who was not only a Christian conservative, but a minister. He delivered the bad news by quietly taking me aside, leading me into the bathroom, and sharing this weird allegory about washing one's hands to cleanse them of dirt, segueing into the weird notion that "mouths full of dirt" also needed washing. He then gently informed me that, because the word "Gol" had emerged from my mouth and it was blasphemous to take the Lord's name in vain (or even a euphemism for the Lord's name, apparently), my mouth was full of dirt—and my dad was going to have to wash it out.

An unspoken irony here is that my dad was notorious for his use of such euphemisms in his frequent outbursts of anger and frustration, including "Dadgummit" (a spoonerism of goddammit), "For crying out loud" (for Christ's sake), and "Gosh oh dear" (God damn). But yeah, be a hypocrite and wash my mouth out with soap for saying Gol.

I was horrified. Not only was I too young to understand any of the religious ramifications of my misdeed, but I was a pretty good kid who strove arduously to avoid getting in trouble or causing problems. I earned high marks in school, got along well with kids and adults alike, and cultivated a sincere desire to please everyone. How in hell had I fucked up so goddamn badly? 

The next day, things got even weirder. My dad informed me, solemnly, that we needed to plan a date for the dreaded mouth washing, and that he was not happy to have to do it. Have to? I thought. Who is making you do it? Grandpa? Then he added, "It's going to hurt me more than it hurts you." Uh huh. Even to my nascent, eight-year-old brain, this was just a cliché that had been rendered meaningless due to its overuse in movies and TV shows.

Despite his reticence to inflict such grievous self-harm, my dad decided to do the dirty deed—er, I mean cleansing deed—the next Saturday morning, right after breakfast. I understood the logic of doing it on a Saturday (it was neither a school day nor a church day), but I wasn't sure about the after-breakfast timing. Maybe it was because I was supposed to brush my teeth after breakfast anyway, and this way I would be brushing after eating soap? I don't know. I was too scared to ask, and I thought that if I simply avoided talking about it, the whole thing might just blow over. 

Speaking of church, I loathed it. Not just because it consumed nearly half of my precious weekend, every weekend, but because none of my friends went to church; I had to dress up in clothes that didn't fit me right and looked ridiculous on me; the mood at church was like that of a funeral; the youth minister who ran the Sunday school creeped me out; and I hated the stupid songs they made us sing.

I didn't understand church; I didn't understand the things they wanted us to believe; I didn't understand how a bleak, humorless book written thousands of years ago could have anything to do with my life; and I didn't understand why any of it was more important than my having an actual weekend. I wanted to be outside playing with my friends, riding my bike, building things, hunting for snakes and lizards, getting dirty...anything but sitting in a circle of bewildered kids in folding steel chairs, looking vacant while singing "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands."

In fact, I suspect it was largely because of my blatant and unapologetic contempt for church, religion, the bible, and prayer that I had been so unjustly charged with blasphemy and sentenced to a mouth-washing. In my mind, the punishment far exceeded the "crime," unless the actual crime was something else, something more...overarching. Like my being a church-hating, snake-loving demon seed.

Nevertheless, I probably should've at least tried believing in prayer, just this once. The whole thing didn't blow over, and the next Saturday morning after breakfast (the Last Breakfast?), my dad solemnly led me into the bathroom, solemnly grabbed the bar of soap, solemnly got the soap wet, solemnly told me to say "Ah," and solemnly rubbed the bar of soap around in my mouth until all past and future indiscretions were completely and utterly vanquished. 

My dad was so solemn about the whole thing that I almost believed it hurt him more than it hurt me.

Almost.

As you might suspect, Dial soap is not made for inserting into one's mouth. Ever. Under any circumstances. Not even if your mouth if full of bacteria and you can't find your Costco-sized bottle of Listerine. Dial soap not only feels completely wrong in the mouth, but it tastes like fucking hell. If it doesn't say that somewhere on the label, it should. It should also say CAUTION: THIS SOAP IS NOT TO BE USED FOR WASHING KIDS' MOUTHS OUT, ESPECIALLY FOR UTTERING INNOCUOUS, TOTALLY UNBLASPHEMOUS EUPHEMISMS FOR "GOD." WHAT ARE YOU, SOME KIND OF SOAP NAZI? GOL! 

So yeah, it sucked. And even if it did hurt my dad more than it hurt me, it hurt me plenty. As I mentioned earlier, I felt confused, humiliated, and violated. And to top it all off, I felt angry. Angry at my dad, angry at my grandpa, angry at religion. Angry at an alleged God who would even allow, let alone supposedly condone, such a punishment. 

But most of all, I was angry at Dad.

Could I ever forgive him? It would be weeks before the thought would even occur to me—and then only because it was a topic broached in...Sunday school. So the thought eventually did occur to me, but it would be decades before I got around to actually forgiving my dad—and then it was only because of a dream I had when I was in my early thirties. 

I dreamt I was punching my dad in the face. 

Never before—and never since—had I dreamt of being physically violent with anyone. So this dream, I thought at the time, must have some significance. And eventually I figured out that the dream meant I needed to forgive my dad. After all, I reasoned, the soap incident was a single, momentary transgression committed by a man who had shown me in a million different ways that he loved me. Besides, since my dad had treated me more or less with kid gloves ever since the soap incident, I believed that he truly was remorseful, even though he never came right out and said it.

In turn, I never came right out and told my dad that I forgave him. I did it silently. And I can't really say why, except that my dad seemed to have an unspoken need first to forgive himself. 

My dad died in 2013 at age 85. By then I had long since forgiven him for the soap incident, but I never knew whether he finally forgave himself. I hope so, because in the grand scheme (whatever that is), it wasn't that heinous. Certainly not as heinous as, say, his insisting that I wear a crewcut until I was in my mid-teens—and that he be my barber. But that's a different story.

Me at age eight...with my pristine mouth
and fresh crewcut