If Buddhists are Correct, I Will Be Awesome in My Next Life and DJ Will Smell Badly

Another honest-to-goodness conversation I recently had with my husband:

I don't want to be there when y'all cook the crawfish. I can't watch.

Oh good grief! Why not?

Because you throw them live in boiling water and that just seems mean.

For Heaven's sake, you are CAJUN- surely this has come up before.

Yes, I have been to plenty of crawfish boils and I didn't like it then either. Also, when some get out of the cooler and are crawling across the yard, it seems like they are chasing you and it scares me.

Because crawfish are known for their lightning speed.

I'm just telling you how I feel. Besides, how would you like me to just throw you in a pot of boiling water?

Crawfish are pretty simple creatures. Do you also like to think the hamburger comes from a hamburger tree?

I know animals have to be killed for me to eat. I just don't want to meet the animal first. And I certainly don't want to witness it. And I would like to think that they kill the cow humanely.

Okay. You continue thinking that.

Besides, if there is such a thing as reincarnation, what if I come back as a human and you come back as a crawfish and I boil you and eat you?

Well, I will just be playing along in a ditch, and then I will be dead and I won't care.

Maybe then I will come back as a shit fly.

And that ended the conversation.

How can I argue with someone who aspires to be a "shit fly" in their next life?

The Falsie Story

I had a flashback while getting dressed this morning. And it reminded me of why you should always think about what you tell your children even if you think you are protecting/censoring them.

I had a goofy "aunt" growing up. I placed quotation marks around aunt because she was actually a cousin of some sort- my grandfather's first cousin- and we were not up on the family tree jargon of third cousin, first cousin twice removed, third cousin once removed, tree branching or not branching.. I dunno.. but she was related, a part of our family and older and I was told to call her "aunt". So... I had a goofy aunt that was always telling hilarious stories and making the adults laugh. I somehow sensed this and always wanted to be around to hear her stories.

One day, she was relaying a story to my mom and grandmother and I walked in on the end of it. Just in time to hear, "...and one of my falsies popped out of my bathing suit." Everyone erupted in laughter, including me. But I had no idea what a "falsie" was. So, being the inquisitive child, I asked. And one of the adults answered, "false eyelashes." I accepted that-although didn't see what was so funny about a false eyelash floating around a pool, but adults found odd things funny- and moved on.

No one ever corrected this and at some point, obviously, I learned what a falsie really was. The story became so much funnier once I knew. But my point is- even now, at thirty-eight years old, when I see false eyelashes, the term "falsie" immediately pops in my brain and then my brain immediately corrects that thought. But that association is hard-wired in there for life.

Perhaps it isn't such a bad thing after all, though, because it also always makes me giggle, remember that story and remember my aunt who died when I was a teenager. And, on this day, not only did I look down at my fake eyelashes, remember this story and my aunt, but also made the connection that perhaps that is where I get it from-my willingness to lay everything out there for the world to see, just for a laugh.

Thank you, Aunt Jettie. I am sure you would love to know I inherited your self-deprecating sense of humor.