Buses Versus Underwear

Throughout my childhood, there were numerous puzzling bits of advice fed to me by parents, grandparents, and elders in general.  And while I eventually understood the rationale behind ones like “don’t lick rocks”, “don’t eat snow off of metal surfaces in winter” and “for frick’s sake stop shoving marbles up your nose!!” (I wish you would have told me THAT one sooner Mom and Dad, I still have big hippo nostrils), there are a few that, even today, stump me.

Perhaps the one of the most puzzling bits of advice I ever received was this: “Always wear clean underwear, just in case you get hit by a bus.”

I can’t be the only young child who was confused by this.  I could understand loads of reasons to wear clean underwear, but the possibility of getting hit by a bus was never one of them.  Especially seeing as I lived on a farm 3 miles outside of a hamlet with a population of about 300.  Getting hit by a moose or tractor seemed more likely. 

Was there some sort of secret bus-repelling power that clean underwear possessed? Could I walk into the street in front of one of those enormous, exhaust-spewing monsters only to have it bounce off of me and my super-clean, flowered, little-girl panties? Maybe I could be like one of those super-heroes in cartoons, bouncing speeding buses off my hips to save puppies and little old ladies in the street, as I triumphantly shout “Hahaha! Buses cannot defeat me! Not with my super-hygienic undergarments! Hahaha!”

Really, when you tell children things like that, can you be so surprised when they believe superman underwear gives them powers of flight, and they leap off of their top bunks full of confidence and enthusiasm?

Even after I was old enough to reason that it was unlikely that my favourite pair of purple panties could save me from becoming a smear on the sidewalk, I still didn’t understand this strange directive.  If you got hit by a bus, wouldn’t trying to remember if you put on a clean pair of tightey-whiteys that morning be the least of your worries?  I eventually stopped worrying about it and decided it would all be explained in the secret handbook that I was told you mysteriously receive when you have a kid.

And while I’m not about to step in front of a bus anytime soon…

I MAY perhaps have been doing superhero poses in the mirror this morning in the new matched lace set I bought last week.

Sue me.

Freaky Handwashing Lady, you are NOT Jesus.

No Freaky Handwashing Lady! I DON’T WANT YOU TO WASH MY HANDS! I don’t CARE if the salt in your crazy fancy hand scrub is from the dead sea! You are wearing too much makeup and it frightens me. You are offending my olfactory senses with your excessive perfume. I think your random sink in the middle of the mall makes no sense and it disturbs my slightly obsessive sense of order and how things should be arranged in my world. As does your affinity for washing stranger’s hands.

I SEE the poor helpless suckers that are naïve enough to stop to talk to you.  These poor people wander over to you.  Maybe to ask for directions. Maybe because they think your sink is some swanky water fountain with a perfumed, slightly elderly attendant. Maybe they are perplexed as to why there is a sink in the middle of the mall and have come to ask if there is a new viral epidemic.  It doesn’t matter. These pitiful souls wander over and BAM! They are snatched into the clutch of your manicured fingers as you garble some hypnotic vagueness about the wonders of dead sea minerals and air jet extraction of insoluble mineral particles.  They stand there in a daze, as though not quite aware of their surrounding, their clouded eyes not quite believing this is happening as you open your jar and massage the mixture into their now stiff and trembling hands.  They catch my eyes as I observe them safely through the wire lattice of the “Things Engraved” keychain stand.  “Help meee!” their wide, dazed eyes cry as the scent of cold pressed essential oils wafts through the air.  Alas, there is no helping them now.  They are already in your clutches, Freaky Handwashing Lady. They stumble away aimlessly, violated and scarred.  

Are you some sort of pathological germaphobe who went off her anti-psychotic medication? Are you a modern female version of Jack the Ripper with an intense fetish for unhygienic men and this is how you scout out your victims? What the hell kind of person agrees to this job? Who on earth thinks “Oh yes! I want to wash other people’s fithy, nasty, nose-picking, butt-scratching, money-handling, sweaty hands for a living?”

Do you labour under the delusion that you’re some sort of reincarnation of Jesus and this is the only way you could think of to make your random limb-washing acceptable in these modern times?

Are you an aardvark?...I hope you're an aardvark.

Ahem.

Well hello there.

I’m not exactly sure how one goes about a first blog post. Especially when I am rather too indecisive and neurotic to decide what it is about, and am slightly technologically retarded and don’t spend nearly enough time in this strange new land of The Internets by most people’s standards. 

It seems to me I should probably have some sort of direction to take this. However, the only problem with picking a single subject is that I would actually like to stick with this project.  Not like my usual flashes in the pan – that brief obsession with tango which I never actually started, my origami phase, that time I decided I was going to get really good at pool (and failed miserably because I don’t own a pool table and realized I hated bars), my two-day bout as a fitness buff, every houseplant I have ever owned (When I say "owned" I mean "murdered". *Sniff* Basil the basil plant and Claire the azalea, can you ever forgive me??), that week where I decided I was going to learn Latin– I could go on but it depresses me.  I really really really want to stick with this.  Which I think would be far easier for my squirrel-on-caffeine-but-now-forced-to-quit-caffeine-because-I’m-now-bat-shit-crazy-all-on-my-own brain if I wasn’t restricted to one subject. 

I know one thing for sure - I need to write SOMETHING.  How do I know?

Because if someone is nice (or stupid or bored) enough to listen these days, I will talk for three and a half hours.

Because my sister has recently threatened to let herself die if I don't start writing again. Which I think is fairly dramatic and somewhat unfair.

Because I narrate my life in my head (sometimes with a British accent. Sometimes, on an off day when I’m feeling particularly cynical and sarcastic, with Jack Nicholson’s voice. When I’m feeling antisocial and angry it’s Clint Eastwood...I don’t know why).

Because my narrations are becoming so pervasive that I actually begin to mouth them. Not aloud. Just silently mouth them. Like a twitchy, overly loquacious mime.

Because my friends and acquaintances have been kind enough to point out that I text in paragraphs.  Sometimes essays. And by “kind enough to point out” I mean they have chided me about it, laughed at me for it, and occasionally – the ones with cheaper phones – have yelled at me about it and attempted to confiscate my phone because I froze up their cellular devices with the sheer volume of words I am sending them.  Today I flooded my friend with two paragraphs just to confirm that yes, we are still on for movies at the mall today.

Fortunately for my friends and acquaintances, I’ve managed to curb my paragraph-long facebook posts. 

I guess what I’m getting at is that, in general…I bleed words.

Yep. Words. I bleed them.

Up until now, they’ve been gushing from random holes and making a bloody mess all over everyone and everything around me and freaking people out.  What I’m really hoping for at this point is more of a controlled...for lack of a better word…transfusion. You know?  Even if it’s not entirely coherent at least it’ll be kinda all in one place and not spewing everywhere making people throw up and faint. Yeah?

Yeah.

So if you’ve made it this far, thank you.

And if you’ve made it this far without throwing up or fainting at my bloody word spew, then kudos.

And if you’ve made it this far without questioning my sanity…yeah nevermind.  Let’s be realistic.

If you haven’t come to the conclusion that I’m at least a little bit mentally unsound right now then you’re probably a magical talking aardvark who’s also in denial about the unlikelihood of your own existence. 

Which would make us best friends. :D