Wenzdaz Wandering Thoughts
I am apparently a beaucoup sneezer. My sneezes aren’t small blemishes on the aural experience. They explode out of me with Krakatoa force. I’m also sneezing several times a day, basically at home, mostly in the home office (snug), causing me spouse and I to both speculate that something in that region is causing the sneeze.
Well, I let go of three eruptions the other day.
My wife said, “Did you read about the murder in Ashland?”
I was horrified. “No. When did that happen?”
“It didn’t happen yet but I hear that a wife was driven to madness and killed her husband after he kept sneezing.”
Yes, I laughed. She wouldn’t do something like that.
I don’t think.
Thursday’s Wandering Thought
He has a rhythm established to deal with his illness. About every seven minutes, he gets up and pees. Then he washes his hands, followed by his face, dousing his eyes with water. Returning to his bedsit, he drinks half a glass of water and refills it, and then blows his nose.
There’s method underlying the madness. It’s all a matter of feeling better and getting better.
Bless You
Where does everyone stand on blessing people when they sneeze? I mean, I say, “Excuse me,” when I sneeze. I notice many people don’t. I tell others, “Bless you,” when I’m near someone who sneezes, even though I’m agnostic, with tendencies that slide toward being an atheist. It’s something mom taught me to do. It was considered polite. That training, though, was almost sixty years ago. She could have been conning me, for all that I know. I was young and just learning the language.
Also, if someone is wearing headphones and can’t hear you, should you still say, “Bless you?”
Should I just drop the whole thing because it’s an outdated custom?
Mom’s Dislikes
Since we’re coming up on Father’s Day, I’m thinking about the things that used to anger Mom that amuses me now. It’s a short list, but each of these earned a sharp word, snapped fingers, threats, or warnings, all delivered with “the evil eye.”
Mom’s threats were usually about giving us away, sending us to an orphanage, or putting her in the nut house. We weren’t a very P.C. household in the fifties and sixties.
Here’s the list:
- Fighting, arguing, swearing and talking back. Her idea of talking back and our idea didn’t always align. We would protest, “What was I doing?” That is talking back. Don’t do it.
- You’d better come when called…or else.
- Cracking your gum, blowing bubbles with your gum, or clicking you spoon against your teeth.
- No slurping! Do not slurp your soup or your cereal. Don’t you dare suck up the final fluids of a soda or milkshake through a straw, either.
- Don’t sneeze too many times, definitely a peculiar irritation. You can see that Mom had a thing about noises. More than three sneezes would irritate her. Sneezing too loud would also annoy her. All that exasperated us. How are we supposed to control the number of times we sneeze, or how loudly?
- Eat all your food. That was rarely a problem for me but one sister had issues. Food items couldn’t be touching one another. That just sickened her. But Mom would order her to eat her food; she would refuse, and would sit in the darkening room, refusing to eat, until Mom relented and took her plate away. That was a battle of wills.
A short list, and nothing too terrible. As children, we’d forget, and absently do these things until Mom voiced her irritation. As adults, we find it funny, and laugh about it. We’re also aware of these matters that irk Mom. If someone starts sneezing and goes more than three times — or loudly — in Mom’s presence, one of us is certain to say, “Here we go.”
What about you? Anything that your Mom did that amuses you in memory?
