Pan-Dimensional Hoochie-Coochie

I feel:: drained from the crying jag I had last night, but generally alright



When y'all pour your coffee and doctor it up with creamer and such (I like a little coffee with my creamer and Splenda), do y'all taste it with a spoon before you actually take a drink? I do this for two reasons:
#1 I want to taste it to make sure it's acceptable for me to walk off with. I don't want to have to get all the way to my room, get comfortable and then realize that the coffee in my cup tastes like shit. I don't know about y'all, but I have to be gentle with myself in the mornings because I tend to be rather cranky.(I personally don't know how anyone can wake up in the morning and be singing "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious". Besides being supremely irritating, it's just my opinion that being asleep is much more preferrable than being awake. Again, my perceptions could be distorted, but I can't ever remember thinking any other way.) I don't want to have to leave my comfortable position, go back to the kitchen and play chemistry set with my cup of coffee.
#2 The reason for taking a little bit of the coffee in the spoon to taste is because I don't want to wind up with 3rd degree burns on my tongue. I'd like to keep my taste buds-thankyouverymuch.

So, in the process this morning of doctoring my coffee and performing the requisite tasting with the spoon and just as I was in the action of bringing said spoon to my mouth, a gnat unceremoniously landed right in the spoon-in my coffee. Yes, I was grossed out and for a split second thought about mentioning to my dad again about his odd habits of keeping only certain doors and windows open during the heat of the day while the air conditioner is working itself to an early death being set consistently on 72/73. But, I decided not to because I could just imagine that he would say something like the gnat had mentally transported itself from another dimension to land right in my coffee spoon (because gnats create themselves, remember?)

You know, it gives me a certain amount of satisfaction/relief to know that I'm not the most fucked up person in my family.


Speaking of fucked up: In Spanish class the other day we were supposed to think of a story about our families to tell to the rest of the class. I thought to myself,"Ummm...which one do I tell? And which one will freak people out the least?" So, I wound up telling the class the story about my father's mother and how she worked in a traveling circus as a "hoochie-coochie" dancer, got pregnant at 16 in 1929 by a man who was at least twice her age (he was loaded) whom she met at one of her shows. He followed her and the circus for a long while and they had a torrid love affair. At least until Mr. I'mtooloadedtoknowwhattodowithallmymoney found out that she was pregnant. He disappeared. That is until after my dad was born and was about 3 years old. He came down here with his whole family and all his lawyers in tow and tried to get custody of my father. They evidently threw money around like it did grow on trees and even tried to bribe the judge presiding over their custody trial. Of course, you know, that didn't fly out here in Nowhere-ville. The judge told Mr. Loaded and his loaded family to get the hell out of Arkansas or he would have all of them arrested for bribery. So, they left and that was the last and only time my dad ever saw his father.

Pretty sad story, right? Well, according to my Spanish class it wasn't as sad as it was scandalous because when several of them asked me what a "hoochie-coochie" dancer was and I told them that my grandmother had basically been a stripper in a traveling circus-you would have thought I had just popped into a Missionary Baptist Church wearing red booty shorts, topless, complete with a set of horns and a tail.(Incidentally, the first time I went to a Missionary Baptist Church, I was wearing a red miniskirt and 4-inch red heels and I sat right in the front pew. I'm sure there were many conversations during and after service about how I was definitely on the short track to Hell. What can I say? The apple doesn't fall far from the tree-I had just gotten out of the stripper business myself. I thought the clothing was appropriate. Oh well.) There was a moment of silence and then I felt the communal intake of breath and then heard the beginnings of nervous laughter, which only got louder. I sat in my chair alternately being embarrassed and angry, but the more I thought about it, the more angry I became. So, in a burst of Idon'tkonwwhatpossessedme, I blurted out, "Well, I could have told you one of the stories about how my mother's father used to force me to give him blow jobs when I was 5. Do y'all think that's a better story?"

At that moment, I heard the professor say, "Class dismissed."

Yes, I am not the most fucked up person in my family and evidently not in my Spanish class either. So yay me.