BUNG WRENCH

My friend Concha asked on her BLOG where she could find a "bung wrench"; I did not know what a bung wrench is and neither did Les, but of course, my brother Duke and Gerald knew what a bung wrench is. I had heard the term "bung hole" and believed that it was a hole in a barrel or keg. I checked the dictionary to make sure I was correct in my recollection. I learned even more from the "Urban Dictionary"!

In the 1970s my mother had a "friend" whom she had never met--they were telephone friends--the woman had been a friend of my grandmother and after Granny died, she called my mother frequently. The woman was obsessed with people not knowing her age and she told my mother how she had already bought her tombstone and deliberately left off the date of birth because she didn't want people to know her age. She went to great lengths about denying her age and told Mother that it was nobody's business but since her children were close to Mother's age, it wasn't difficult to figure her approximate age. For example, she told Mother how she'd taken a burnt match and blackened the date on her driver's license; refused to join the Senior Citizens Center; became angry about Medicare being mandatory; refused to attend class reunions; she had her children call her by her given name and the grandchildren were also told to call her by her name and not "Grandma"!

She was also obsessed with SEX. Behind her back, we named her "Mrs. Sexpot". She read "The National Enquirer" and "Star Magazine" and would telephone Mother to discuss any sexual topics she found in those tabloids. One day she asked my mother what the word cunnilingus meant--and she spelled it--and Mother answered, "I don't know, I'll have to ask Suzy about that!" Yes, I delicately explained to my Mother and she relayed the information to Mrs. Sexpot! Mrs. Sexpot asked, "Are they allowed to do that?"

Mrs. Sexpot had just two children and as my mother had borne eight, Mother asked Mrs. Sexpot how she had been so lucky just to have two kids. Mrs. Sexpot told Mother, "After two kids, I told him to just put it in a bung hole!"