After receiving that first bag enema there were times when mom decided that one might be the best thing for me. During those next few years I was given one whenever home from school and not feeling well, on occasions that mom thought that I had gone too long without making a decent BM, and for those times when she might just think it was a good idea. It might have been a strategy to keep me from playing sick so I did not have to go to school, but it worked. However, if I should be home claiming to not feeling well, towards mid-morning like clockwork mom would go to the linen closet, get out the enema bag, and head into the bathroom closing the door behind her. Our house had thin walls and the sound of running water and then filling the bag were readily heard signals of what I had coming.

There were those occasions when Carol and/or Emily had gotten enemas when mom would think that since the bag was out it just presented a great opportunity to give me one as well. Her feeling was that while maybe one was not necessarily needed, a good cleaning out would never hurt. Much to my younger sister's delight were those occasions when I had been given an enema when mom thought that Carol or Emily would benefit from one as well. Emily was always very enthusiastic about these and whenever I was getting my enema for whatever reason, she would not be that far away anxiously awaiting her time and hoping for her session with mom's enema bag. Conversely, my older sister, Carol would always manage to keep her distance, a strategy that would occasionally pay off, but more often than not she would eventually find herself in the bathroom, too.

Like most kids in those days, we were not strangers to one of the most popular remedies of that era. Every home had at least one syringe that was a bag or a bulb, but most had more. While most kids knew that their friends got enemas, this was not very often discussed despite the fact that enema bags and bulbs were readily left out in the open in a great many homes. Bags were often hung on the backs of bathroom doors, suspended from the shower curtain rod, or like in our home often found inverted on the bathtub faucets drying after use. Eventually, my enema occasions started to taper off, but I talk about that in the next chapter.