Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Woefully Unprepared

I was doing dishes last night, and I looked out the window just in time to see this man drive by and hock (hock? is that a word? I have no idea, but that is what my brother used to always say!) a big 'ol loogie out of his truck window right at my house. Gross! And then, a few minutes later, a dog strolled by and began eagerly licking it up. Gag!

But that got me to thinking ...can you spit? I, I am sorry to say, am a spitting failure. I've never been able to figure out how to get it to fly out of my mouth like a nice, round, disgusting projectile. When I spit, it tends to ooze out of my mouth, dribble on my chin, and land at my feet. So, in the post when my kids were lost, and I said they had to stay within spitting distance, that was a lie. They would literally have to be directly under my mouth at all times, and we all know I would be completely crazy by day's end if they actually did this.

I actually remember in grade school, we would walk to school with our next-door neighbors, and whoever was ready first would go over to the other's house. Well, this one day, the neighbors came over to our house, and we were running late. I was still brushing my teeth. And Sean, who was my age (I think we were 5th or 6th grade at the time) was standing there watching me brush my teeth. And when it came time to spit, this long, gooey string was just hanging from my mouth, unwilling to disengage and fall into the sink like it should. Disgusting! I thought. This boy is standing here watching toothpastey drool hang out of my mouth! So, I did what I thought would end the situation quickly, I reached up and kind of pinched off the drool/spit at my mouth, and threw it into the sink.

"Gross!" Sean yelled. "What are you doing?"
My face immediately began to flame, and I realized I had done the wrong thing. And, indeed I had, because in true preteen form, he told everyone at school how Alayna grabs her spit when it's hanging from her mouth and throws it in the sink. Nice. Thus began my lifelong shame and humiliation for my lack of spitting skills.

In the spirit of laying it all on the table, I also cannot burp on command or make farting noises with my armpit. All this leads me to realize how woefully unprepared I am to be the mother of 3 boys.

4 comments:

  1. You failed to mention your whistle skills? Unfortunatly, I can do 'some' of the things listed above-well okay several and whistle a tune, call the kids from a block away.....but, after all I have been a Mom of 2 boys for over 21 years. Actually, I picked up the talents from my nephew that is my age while staying with them in Midland during the summer when I was young.

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  2. I feel your pain. The only way I can get and velocity on my spit is to forcibly jerk my head forward as it leaves my mouth.

    This usually has the unfortunateconsequence of the spittle clearing my chin and leaving a line of moistness down the front of my tee shirt.

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  3. Yeah, I think that spitting is a boy thing. Grif can make great armpit farts. And his burps would make any fighter pilot proud. His little brother is in AWE of him!

    Sunday night while we were watching a movie, Luke was sitting in my lap & I *passed gas.* He looked up at me admiringly and said, "I LOVE you, Mommy!" If only it were that easy with the rest of the world!

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  4. I'm a good spitter...if I had known you lacked this skill I would have taught you when we lived together. Sad. It took me a while to learn to burp. Actually when I felt like I was about to throw up one time I realized I just need to burp. You know I can throw up on command (no eating disorder, just nerves in college)and this is the beginning of my burps. Ok, TMI.

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