That is Messed Up

When I was seven, I was walking my sister, who was five, home from school, as was my job. As we approached our apartment building, I had an increasing need to pee. We rushed as quickly as we could and, at our apartment door, I was doing the “hold it in” dance while I tried to fit the key hanging around my neck into the lock to get the door opened. My sister, in her five-year-old wisdom, tells me, “When I have to go really bad and don’t know if I’ll make it, I always say to myself, ‘My bladder is safe; my bladder is safe…’” I guess she thought that would help me. In my seven-year-old logic, though, I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out why anyone would put so much concentration on their bladder knowing it could actually explode at any moment. Why would I keep reminding myself of my bladder when I was deliberately trying not to think about it until I got to the bathroom? Whatever, it didn’t work and I ended up wetting myself before I got to the toilet. Why did I tell you that story; because this is what is my fucked-up thought process.

Something happened the other night that reminded me of that story, but it would have sounded really odd if I’d told the more recent story first, so I started with the older one. I told you my thought process is fucked up. Okay, now you’re asking what happened the other night. Well, I’ll tell you; be patient. It was Wednesday night, I remember because that was the day I got my tags and I celebrated by having a couple of vodka/juices that night. I take a 24oz glass and fill it ¾ with ice, then I pour a shot of vodka over it, and cover it all with whatever juice I’ve made for the kids; then I stir and enjoy. I don’t get drunk, but I do get to chill. So, I drank these two drinks while I relaxed and blogged that night – usually I only sip on a glass of water – and then I went to bed. I peed and brushed my teeth before going, as usual. However, because I was drinking rather than sipping, I woke up at 12:35 a.m. needing to pee. Then it happened.

No, I did not wet myself. As I was putting my feet onto the floor, I was actually thinking, “Wow, I haven’t woken up needing to pee in a long time. No, wait, you don’t have to pee, you’re suffering from Full Bladder Syndrome.” Then I started laughing. What the fuck?! It’s the middle of the night, I’d been asleep for about and hour-and-a-half, and I wake up coining a politically-correct phrase and cracking myself up over it. I actually repeated it to myself on the way to the bathroom and then on the way back to bed, laughing the entire time. Who else wakes up in the middle of the night telling herself that she’s suffering from Full Bladder Syndrome? It can only be me, Queen of the Fucked-Up Thought Processes. That would be the correct phrase, though, right - Full Bladder Syndrome? I mean, with everything else being politically correct these days, we wouldn’t want to offend anyone by actually insinuating that he or she had to pee, now would we? Gosh no.

Since we’re going to do that, let’s just change pooping to Rectal Evacuation Syndrome. Everything is a syndrome now, right? I think from now on I’ll correct my kids on these terms. The next time Dolly says she’s got hiccups, I’ll tell her she’s suffering from Mild Diaphragm Inversion. When the boys tell me they’re hungry, I’ll tell them they’ve got a Negative Nutrition Flow. That’ll really screw them up, won’t it? When I was younger, like in my late teens, early twenties, I always said that, when I had kids, I wanted to mess with their heads. Rather than speaking to them like any other parent would, I wanted to speak to them in Pig Latin or Gibberish – all the time. How cool would that be, huh? I also wanted to call thing by the wrong name to them; like, I’d call a chair a shoe and I’d call a couch a sink; that kind of thing. Obviously I didn’t do that but I wonder what would’ve happened if I had.

I don’t think it should really matter, do you? The English language is fucked up enough as it is, and, the way people talk today, I don’t think that anyone would have actually noticed if my kids were a little different. I mean, who came up with some of the stupid words we have and why do they have multiple definitions? Why is the basin in which we wash dishes called a sink, yet something that falls to the bottom of a body of water is said to sink? Some of my dishes actually float so I’m not getting the connection, if there is one. I think ‘sink’ is a stupid word, anyway. Onomatopoeia, however, is a really cool word; it’s actually my favorite word.

In case you don’t know, onomatopoeia means, “a word that sounds like what it is.” For instance, boing, ding dong, and murmur are all onomatopoeic words. Understand? It’s the word of a sound: oink, bark, buzz… See why it’s such a cool word? It’s bubbly and fun; and it makes you think of silly sounds and words you might never have thought of otherwise. ‘Sink’, on the other hand, is just dull, lifeless, and negative. When something sinks it goes to the bottom; and nobody ever has fun washing dishes in the sink. Just hearing that word makes me groan (See: onomatopoeia :-D). “Mom, I put my dish in the sink.” Great, now I have more work to do. There’s just no fun in that; not the chore or the word. So the next time you’re down in the dumps, or someone is making you crazy, or you’re stressed, spend some time thinking of onomatopoeic words and see if your mood doesn’t change. I bet it will. I mean, honestly, who can be grumpy while sitting in a chair, thinking, “Ribbit, boing, rattle, buzz, gasp”? Nobody, that’s who; and while you’re it, see how angry you can stay while yelling at your kid, “It’s your job to clean the poop out of the litter boxes.” The word ‘poop’ will take the anger right out of you.

And that, my friends, is a minor example of my fucked-up thought process. Imagine I gave an example of a major one. :-D Until tomorrow…peace to all.