Love, Etc.

My mother often worries about what an anxious person I am, and if that’s not a bizarrely ironic statement, I don’t know what is. I think that sentence about sums it up, but I can’t help but chuckle to myself just thinking about WHERE I might have gotten such anxiety FROM?

After all, the woman who raised me is the same person who, upon learning that I would be wearing my (beautiful but fairly modest, at least by local standards — I mean I’m not rocking an eyeball on my finger or anything) engagement ring on my honeymoon, was absolutely HORRIFIED and fretted aloud that I needed to guard my hands everywhere I went, because someone could just come up to me and MACHETE IT RIGHT OFF MY FINGER, and she was completely serious. Oh wait, no, I think she meant that they would MACHETE OFF MY ENTIRE FINGER, not just the ring. So.

(We honeymooned in Aruba, which is incredibly safe and not at all prone to rogue machetes, even in a post-Natalee Holloway world.)

(Not that I’m blaming the victim here, but I think we can all agree that it was highly unlikely that I would be getting wasted and trekking off to parts unknown with strange local men I had just met on my honeymoon, I mean, right?)

She ALSO forwards me EVERY SINGLE THING she gets that is a warning of some kind, whether it’s the woman who narrowly missed going home with a guy who had duct tape and rope in the back of his car or how to keep yourself safe in the event of a person who wants to steal your car in a parking lot (throw your keys in one direction, run in the opposite direction. Scream a lot.)

I don’t even know where I’m going with this, except I keep laughing at all the warnings she gives me about keeping my eye on Sam when we’re out in public, when first of all, HAAAA, as if she raised me to be anything but PSYCHOTICALLY SUSPICIOUS, but also, every mother of a two-year-old knows that taking your eyes off them in a public place is JUST NOT POSSIBLE. I mean, yes, you don’t want them running into traffic or being abducted or what have you, but the more pressing reason is that they are like tiny destructive robots who will leave rubble in their wake if you leave them unattended for like, five whole seconds.

For God’s sake, I was putting CUCUMBERS IN A FRACKING BAG today at the grocery store, thus occupying my hands for what, a FRACTION OF A SECOND?, and the kid nearly took out the entire banana stand. It was teetering! Bananas were at risk! Repeat, BANANAS WERE AT RISK.

So yeah, geez, I keep an eye on my kid for the safety of everyone involved, including the bananas, but also because yes, my mother raised me to be EVER VIGILANT of people who want to do me or my child harm.

(I’m sure she’ll comment here. Keep your eyes peeled.)

Along those lines, I have said this elsewhere before, but when we lived in South Carolina, we were always warned to not go near golf balls that had fallen into the many ponds around our house (or anywhere, really). South Carolina — at least the area we lived — was pretty lax when it came to allowing fairly large alligators to live in the lagoons on golf courses and housing developments, and the one behind our house was particularly gigantic. I wouldn’t put Sunny on a lead out there, is what I’m saying. ANYWAY, every golfing season, some jackhole would lose a limb digging after his golf ball, because he found out too late that the golf ball he was digging at was an alligator egg, which HA HA.

But the thing is, wouldn’t YOU take off the limb of anyone who tried to harm your kid? I would BREAK THEIR NECK, honestly, without even flinching, and if ever there was a time to have sympathy for an alligator, motherhood is it. See also: I have an entirely new appreciation for the peril we were actually in when I was on a hike in high school with my boyfriend and some friends, and a baby bear — an adorable, tiny, picture-perfect baby bear — rolled right in front of us on the trail. At first we were like, OH LOOK, a baby bear, how CUTE! And then, OH MY JESUS GOD, A BABY BEAR! RUN! because that bitch would have TORN OUR FACES OFF.

Apropos of nothing, now might be the time to mention that Baby Bear’s (Sesame Street) speech impediment makes me positively ENRAGED. I’m all for being inclusive and making kids feel like everyone is different and speech impediments are okay, but my GOD, it’s TERRIBLE and not even REALISTIC-SOUNDING and SESAME WORKSHOP, I’M PRETTY PEEVED.

I hope you have a great Tuesday. Give yourself a cookie for making it through this absurdity unscathed.

*Pet Shop Boys

64 comments August 22nd, 2011