They call me 'Squinty'

     …and a lot of other really mean things, too.  “They” being the two bundles of joy my husband and I brightened this world with just over twenty years ago.  My kids find me and my whole completely-unfounded-yet-unshakeable-hippie-esque-conviction-that-if-I-don’t-get-reading-glasses-I-won’t-ever-really-need-them… they find the whole package deeply hilarious/super sad.  And oh, they just love finding funny/sad labels to tag me with, for any occasion.  Like “Al” short for Alzheimer—because not just my eyes have gone fuzzy. 

     Saying “Wait till you’re my age” is such a waste of breath, a fact I’m proud to say I’ve understood since back in the day when I was calling my own mother things like ‘Squinty.’   Though I think if I had actually come out and said something like that to her face, I’d’ve been Squinty long before my eyesight started to go from the clop I would’ve received.  Oh how my mother loved that word: clop!   Her daily mantra during my formative years was: “One good clop is worth a life time of understanding.”  Wise words, Nita Donovan, wise words… Unfortunately for me, by the time I could put them into practice, the world had gone irretrievably PC.  No one’s allow to clop anything these days, least of all your own kids.  The word ‘clop’ has gone out of use.  I doubt you’d even find it in the dictionary anymore, unless it was some cute reference to the sound your pony makes.  You know, the pony-you-never-got-so-therefore-had-to-buy-for-your-own-kids-who-weren’t-very-horsey-and-didn’t-really-want-one-anyway-and-so-now-you’re-feeding-it-and–looking-after-it-in-addition-to-paying-for-it… the sound your pony makes.  Clop-clop-clop.

     I have a whole menagerie of animals I’m looking after for my kids who don’t live at home anymore!   It’s my own fault.  My mantra during their formative years, was: “You have kids, you have animals.”  I said it until it was true, and was finally able to bring my husband around to that view.  He didn’t grow up with tankfuls of fish or pens of guinea-pigs and bunnies, cages of hamsters, rats, mice, or even cats and a whole slew of dogs, the way I did.  My parents were great that way.  They believed looking after animals was invaluable for children.  That every animal I bought with my own hard earned allowance/babysitting/shit-job money—every pet I had helped me learn skills I’d need later in life.  And oh how right they were.  I use those skills to this day.  Nobody cleans out MY OWN KIDS’S bunny-cage quite like I do.  And the added bonus is my kids were able to leave home with a clear conscience, knowing the Hansel and Gretel-like trail of pets they left in their wake would be well loved and looked after.  

        Well, I HAVE to look after all these critters, don’t I?  My kids might call me mean names if I didn’t.