The Chickens and the Bees

I had no idea how much a person could learn just by teaching their kid about sex.


Friends were appalled that I just TOLD my kids about it.


"What if they ask questions?"

Answer them.

"What is they ask, you know, personal questions."

Tell them that the answer is “Nunya” Nunya Business. Next Question.


"What if they want to know about your past?"
See above answer. Repeat as necessary.


Just don’t do what my mom did and give your kid James Dobson’s book Preparing For Adolescence. The way he described sex made it sound like the man has to pivot on his toes. I had no idea at that time that legs could move around at all, despite my brief flirtation with gymnastics. I just knew that if his most masculine part was sticking out at a right angle and my Orifice to all Things Feminine was parallel to my feet, well, it doesn’t take a degree in Engineering to know that that sort of arrangement just isn’t meant to be.


I told my boss Kenny that I wanted to get chickens. He told me to keep the rooster out of there. I asked why.

He blinked and looked as if he had been thoroughly stunned by my apparent stupidity. It seems Kenny grew up knowing farm stuff. I stop short of calling his knowledge Animal Husbandry as that term makes me feel vaguely icky. I think that animals should just stick to marrying each other and humans can do the same.


So, Kenny grew up with this country grandma who, according to his recollections, would strangle the errant rooster when he was “making trouble”. I asked why she would do that. He replied, “because they wouldn’t leave the chickens alone”. I asked why they were hanging out with the chickens in the first place.




He said, “once the roosters have sex with the chickens they always want back into the coop!”

I said, completely incredulous and probably WAY too loud for the interior of a Blockbuster store, “OHMYGOD!!! ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT ROOSTERS HAVE SEX WITH CHICKENS?!?!”


I don’t think I have ever seen that man laugh that hard.

Or that loud.

Or, for the matter, that long. I always thought of roosters and chickens as competing groups, not so much as fodder for dating each other. I kinda’ pictured a West Side Story of the chicken coop going on. I just didn’t realize that in that scenario the roosters are wearing the black leather jackets and the chickens are wearing the twirly dresses.



Kids who grow up in the suburbs are clearly at a disadvantage when it comes to this kind of knowledge. I was in middle school before I learned what a cowlick was. I had been told for years that my hair “had a cowlick in it”. I thought that it meant that just when my hair was coming in (as my people are born pale and bald) a cow licked my head just in that spot over my right eye and that is why my hair lies funny and why that Dorothy Hammill haircut never looked quite right on me.

High School Reunion

Saturday night was the reunion. It was, in a word....surreal. For one thing, I kept thinking, "Can you guys believe we are old enough to DRINK?! Shouldn't somebody be running up to SA with a fake ID to buy Purple Passion and Bartles & James wine coolers?!" (Bonus points if you actually remember SA before it turned into whatevertheheckit'scallednow!)


I noted quickly that time tends to sharpen the edges. I noticed a LOT less clique-adge. More people were moving with great fluidity between social groups.


I also noticed that people only knew me in the context of "being Amy's friend". As soon as I said, "I was friends with Amy R." I would see the flash of recognition. I suspect that if I had spent the reunion sitting alone at a table on the periphery of the room with my face buried in a notebook writing my sad poetry....they would have said, "OhYEAH, now I know who she is!"

I spent much of my high school career as Amy's sidekick, the person whose job it was to make her dates laugh while she went to the bathroom and put on make-up.


If I had a dime for every. single. time I heard, "Amy, your friend Cyndi has such a great personality" (which, as we all know is code for "nice to talk to, not exactly Date Material") I would be a rich woman indeed.

I still can't believe that the people I went to high school with are this old.

Unbelievable.

Prior to the reunion I had lunch with my brother Dennis. I told him that I was starting to feel a little nervous about going to the reunion. He said,"well, as long as you don't go with your hair looking like that it should be fine." I explained to him that I had already "done my hair". (If you can call washing and putting gel in hair "doing your hair".) He said,"but it looks like it's just wet. It looks like you have gel in it, like it's "fake wet".


sigh....

I attempted to explain to Dear Brother that my hair currently has two settings:

1. Dry and frizzy

OR

2. Fake wet gel from hell

That's it. I understand that while we were growing up I had that silky baby-fine straight hair, but after Baby Number Three my hair became curly and rebellious.

I know not why.

All I know is that when I don't put gel on it young children run screaming and villagers end up chasing me with torches and pitchforks.

I didn't want to ruin the reunion.

I had to use the gel.

I AM the rainmaker

If you are in central Oklahoma and you were wishing for rain today then...


You are welcome.

I was feverishly working to get ready for our trip tomorrow and decided that putting the comforter and pillowcases on the line for that "sunshine fresh smell" would be a grand idea.

Which, of course, means that it will rain.

Always.

In the morning Katy and I will be travelling to Illinois for my 20th High School reunion. (Yeah, I can't believe it either!)

Twenty years?! That can't be right. Hold on, I'm gonna go do the math.


Yeah, apparently, it really HAS been twenty years.

Two decades.

One-fifth of a century.


Holy Guacamole. I really don't feel old enough for this. I think I must be lying and maybe it is my TEN year high school reunion. Yeah, that's it.