The Seven Year Itch

Did I ever tell you how I got the seven year itch? (giggle, giggle) The doctor lived right across the street from us. He and I were good friends. I used to drive him and his wife to Charleston once in a while. They had to go down there to get drugs from the drug house because we didn’t have a drug store at that time in Yemassee. He said that he and his wife would go to sleep if they drove down by themselves. We always went to a big seafood place to eat and they always had what they called soft shell crab.
Well, Dr Rivers was just like a member of my family and I would run over to him every time I thought I had an ailment.


I had been having some dates with a young man who was a surveyor and he was out there surveying the country for the power company, South Carolina Power Company, to come through. He, and the other men, members of the crew, were boarding there with Mama. He asked me for some dates. Well, he would take me and some other girls to a place not far from us, to a swimming pool and we would go swimming, or maybe sometimes go to a movie.


And so, he had a beautiful Citadel ring he got when he graduated from the Citadel in Charleston. He asked me if I would like to wear it. Well, you know I said, “Yes, I would.” I had to wrap it, oh, I don’t know how many times with twine so it would fit. And I was wearing his ring. Then, I started to itch.


You remember Leonie, the barber, well, this boy went to him to get a haircut and maybe a shave, I really don’t remember. Leonie heard him say, “You know, I did something I shouldn’t have done when I was going to college. I was out on the street one night and I felt like I’d like to have some sex. And I saw this girl and I asked her and she said, ‘Yea, come on and go home with me.’ {She was one of those kinds of girl}(Miss K.’s side remark). He said, “After that, I felt like I had caught something from her. Sure enough, I went to the doctor and he said, ’You’ve got gonorrhea.’ I said, “Well treat me. So the doctor treated me several times and finally told me, ‘I think you are well now. I think I got you better.’ And so, he said I didn’t think I had it, but now, that I’m out here I felt like I might be getting it again.”


Well, Leonie heard him say that in the shop. So he came home and told me, “I don’t want you going out with that fella any more. 'Cause I’m going to tell you what I heard. And so, he told me what he heard in the barber shop that day. And so help me, the next afternoon, I was itching under that ring on my finger. I mean really itching. I said “I’ve got gonorrhea!” And so, I ran over to Dr. Rivers and I said, “Dr. Rivers, I’ve got gonorrhea.” He said, “My Lord, what have you been doing?” I said, “Nothing.” He said, “Well you had to do something. What did you do? Who you been going with?” I told him. I had taken the ring off and carried it over there to show it to him. He said “You don’t get gonorrhea that way.” I said, “I heard if you sat on the toilet after somebody that had it, you could get it, too.” He said, “You can’t get it that way. You only get it one way.” And he told me how. And I said, “I sure haven’t done anything like that!” He said, “Well, tell me what you have done with him.” I said, “Well, we went swimming, and we danced up on the pavilion.” “Well, what else have you done?” I said, “He has kissed me, but that's the only thing.” He said “You had to do something else.” “I don’t know what the something else was, but I knew I hadn’t done it.”

He checked me then and he said “You’ve got the seven year itch.” I said, “Did I get that from the ring?” He said, “No, I don’t know how you got it, but that’s what you’ve got.” He gave me a jar, a nice size jar, of a black looking ointment. He said, “You had to get it from somebody, who have you slept with?” I said,”My niece and I slept together one night.” He said, “Well, find out if she is itching. If she’s itching, she’s got it too.”

And so, I went home and found her and I said, “Are you itching?” She said, “Yea, I am.” And so, I told her, “You got the seven year itch, too. Dr. Rivers said I did and he wanted to know how I got it.” She had spent the night with some girls that came up from Savannah and they lived across the street from us. The Williams family, and I said, “That’s where you got the itch from.” We found out they had the itch, too. Several of the girls at the school had the itch.

Well, Dr. Rivers said, “You and your niece put this cream all over your bodies tonight when you go to bed and you put on a gown and in the morning when you get up both of you get in the tub and give yourself a good bath. Put the sheets off that bed in the laundry and the gowns you worn that night, put them in the laundry. You don’t put on anything, but something fresh. You do that and you won’t have the itches anymore.

And so, that’s what we did and I haven’t had the itches since. But sometimes when I get itchy, I think, “Well, I guess I have the seven year itch.” But, I’ve never had it again, I don’t think.. Oh, that was something else.