I Will Never! by Diane

I am thrilled to welcome my first guest poster -- Diane from Diane's Addled Ramblings. I love Diane because of her honesty, humor and mad writing skills. Biding her time in Pigsknuckle, VA -- where she struggles to fit in surrounded by gun-toting, pick-up truck driving Republicans (not that there is anything wrong with that) -- Diane is a blogger who isn't afraid to write what she feels. Her impassioned writing can be both amusing, thought-provoking and heart-breaking. Plus, she is my favorite kind of curmudgeon. But most of all, I love her relationship with her daughter. Reading about their interactions and love for each other just touch me deeply and often make me laugh out loud. If you haven't visited Diane's blog before, I encourage you to check it out. And thank you, Diane, for putting together this wonderful guest post! And I vow never to spit on my Little One either!

I Will Never!

When Jenners asked me to do a guest post for her while she’s on vacation, my first reaction was to feel honored. I mean, she’s Jenners, after all. Duh, right? (Editorial Comment From Jenners: You know I'm not going to pay you for this, right? No need to suck up!) My second reaction was to feel panic. I mean, I have a tough time coming up with blog topics for my own posts, let alone someone else’s! So I asked Jenners for a couple of prompts and she obliged. Whew.

One of her suggestions was, “What were some things you swore you wouldn't do before you became a mother but then ended up doing?”

Hmmmmm… I had a good think about it but the only thing that came to mind was dishes. I can remember standing at the sink when I was about 8-years-old, up to my elbows in Palmolive (my mother swore by Madge’s assertions that it would keep her hands soft… the problem with that, though? She never did the dishes!), grumbling under my breath that I’d never ever make my kid do anything so horrible and heinous as wash dishes. Ever. Damn it. OK, so I probably didn’t say damn it. Probably.

I wasn’t terribly forward-thinking, though. It didn’t occur to me that if I didn’t make my kid do the dishes, I’d have to do them. For-friggin’-ever. So, yeah, my kid totally does dishes. And the poor thing is an only child so she doesn’t even have any brothers she can pay to do the really icky pots (like the mac and cheese ones), because she can’t abide anything (like renegade noodles) floating in the water and touching her as she scrubs. What? Oh, is that just me?

Anyway, renegade noodles aside, in thinking about the original topic, I did recall a something I swore I’d never do that I never have (and never will)…

My mother used to keep cotton handkerchiefs in her purse (this was nearly 40 years ago). Whenever we were going into a store or restaurant, she’d do a quick inspection of our faces and if there were any dirty smudges on my brothers or me, out came the hankie. Then she would… ugh… lick it. Then she would… ugh… wipe our faces. With her spit! Aaaaggggghhhh. I know some of you are thinking, ‘What? I do that all the time.’ But you need the whole story. See, my mother was a smoker. She smoked a lot. She also drank coffee. A lot of coffee. Do you have any idea what smoker-coffee breath smells like? Uh huh. Well, imagine that spread all over your face! Like I said, Aaaaaggggghhhhh! Disgusting. Completely and utterly disgusting.

Every time she did it, I swore I would never, ever, not in a million years, ever (effectively) spit on my child. Ever. Damn it. And I’m pretty sure I said damn it. And I’m proud to say, I never have. When my daughter was little, my mother would give me that annoying ‘I know better than you’ look and say that I would, at some point, wipe her face with my spit. NEVER! I’d declare. And I always kept extra wipes on hand so I’d never have to. But on the rare occasion that I’d find myself out of wipes? Well, my baby went shopping dirt-full and spit-free. Damn it.