It’s eleven, eleven. Time for a kiss! Okay, that’s really something that I share only with my wife, but now you know it, and there’s no backing out. It’s one of those little things that people say to each other.
Growing up, there were more than a couple of things my mom would say to us. Most of them were strong enough to echo in my daily life. Here’s a few:
“Good God! It looks like a bunch of Okies live here!”
“I don’t see a piano tied to your ass.”
“I wonder what the poor people are doing now.”
“Don’t blame me, I only live here.”
“Can’t we all just get along?”
“Well, at least you’ll be better before you get married.”
That last one is sticky. No one really knows why my mom said it. And she said it a lot … upset tummies, mumps, chicken pox, broken hearts … it was her salve for just about every thing. I think she probably said it because she thought it was funny.
Today, I’m working on a scene that’s particularly tricky. When I was six, I dove into a wading pool in Missoula, Montana. I don’t know why. No one really knows why. When I ask my sister, she remembers the blood and gore, but not the impetus. It’s hard to figure out the motivations of such an act. I was scraped and skinned from head to toe. And my poor, long-suffering mother poured bottle after bottle of hydrogen peroxide on my legs, my ass cheeks, my nose. But here’s the thing—I was numb. I don’t remember feeling anything. After every wound-cleaning session, she said, “Well, at least you’ll be better before you get married.”
She never lived to see that happen. Part of me is thankful for that … hard for anyone to measure up to her critical eye. But I think she would have been happy to know that I found Alana, who seems to love me—scabs, scars and all.