SOOO READY FOR READERS DIGEST

I used to think my family was boring. In my childish mind, because we weren't full of scandal and drama we were uninteresting. Sure, we had our quirks and moments oddball behavior, but that didn't make us cool and engaging. It just meant we were weirdos.

I wanted a dad that listened to hiphop and a mom that was more of a girlfriend than a mother and grandparents who doted to the point of spoiling and cousins who were big and bad and maybe an uncle who had a prison record and aunts who talked too much about everybody's business.

This was cool to me you see.

Instead i had a dad whose love for popular music died in 1979. A mom, though quite affable and easy going, let me know there were boundaries. Grandparents who bore gifts, but in exasperating moderation. Cousins who were cool but too studious to have reps. An uncle whose only vice was maybe he was a bit liberal with the alcohol. Ok, he had a few "magazines" too. I'll blog about my discovery of these another time. Aunts who were a picture of restraint and graciousness.

*Yawn*

All well and good for an uneventful and rather well turned childhood, but it made for a painfully obvious lack of funny stories. No salacious one-liners here. Nothing tawdry and exciting to regale future coworkers and boyfriends and scare the children i expect to have one day. My friends all seemed to have such witty stories concerning their lives and the relatives in it and i, well i had nothing. Until i realized that the funniness was happening all around me, but i had neglected to see it.

Which brings me to last week.

In one of their thrice yearly sojourns, my grandparents are up visiting. When the grands come to visit, its a mini family reunion because they live so far away from the majority of their children. We all descend on each others homes eating up each other's food like locusts, as my grandparents make their rounds on family and friends.

This past weekend my grandmother is spending time with me at my house and we're sitting at the kitchen table talking. She's asking me about my friends and whats up with them.

Let me tell you something about my grand mom. She has a memory like an elephant. I don't mean that in any untoward way either. Its a total compliment. She can meet someone once for only 10 seconds, but she'll remember them forever. Its an endearing quality, and everyone who's ever met her, loves her. And, if she manages to learn a little about you, she makes sure to put it in action.

For instance, one of my parent's friends -we'll call him bob(actually that is his name.) - loves, loves, loves cowpeas.

Now before you go asking me "whats a cowpea?" I implore you to google. Don't you love how google has become a verb? Man...google is one of those ideas i wish i came up with. Id be so rich right now. Where was I? Ah yes. Please google. Wait, don't google. Googling might mean you leave this page, and seeing as how im being exceptionally longwinded, you might never come back. Stay here. I'll tell you what a cowpea is.

A cowpea is a legume, and is a staple in many southern homes. Its quite similar to black-eyed peas and often prepared in much the same way. Happy now?

So dear Bob loves cowpeas. My grandmom learned this on one of her visits a few years ago, and each time she comes up, she brings him(whom she's only met ONCE) a bag or bags of dried cowpeas. One time she had came up without them, due to a bad harvest or something - the great cowpea famine i guess - and she was soo apologetic that you'd think she'd leaked the valerie plame identity. Thats how sorry she was. She kept telling my dad, "tell him im going to make sure i bring him some next time." Her failure to provide Bob with his beloved cowpeas was a serious business.

I say all this to say my grand mom makes it a point to remember people and their specifics.

So she's asking about my friends. Im telling her about this that and the other when she interrupts me to ask:

"how is that girlfriend of yours?"

Now i know i don't have a LOT of girlfriends but dang yo. Im not that socially awkward. I have enough so that asking me about "that" girlfriend is a bit too vague.

I ask her to specify.

"Oh the brown skin one"

Most of my girlfriends are some shade of brown, so this too wasn't much help.

"brown skinned one?"
"Yes. She's taller than you too."

Well that narrows it down. Except for one girl, all my friends are taller than I am. Of course i'm 5'3 so it isn't hard. It completely sucks because when im with them i feel all lilliputian and inconsequential, but when im with the girl who is shorter i feel like a huge beast. I can't win.

"I can't think of who you're talking about."
"You know who! The brown skinned one with hair that look like cat tits."

*record scratch*

Did my grandmom just say the word tit? Did she just compare someones hair to cat tits? Yes, yes she did.

"What did you say?"

I'm asking her to repeat herself, not because i didn't hear her - because i totally did - but because i can't believe the words that came out of her mouth.

"...The one whose hair look like cat tits."

I start laughing.

"what?" I say incredulously.

"you know what a cat tit looks like?"

She's not seeing the humor in the insane way this convo has turned. Im cracking up, doubled over in laughter and she's smiling, but not for the same reason that i am laughing. She has a bemused look on her face, a mixture of pity and sympathy at the fact that perhaps i've never seen a cat tit.

I peer into my mind's eye, imagining cow udders, only on a smaller scale.

"ye-yes i know what it looks like."

"Well your friend has hair that looks like cat tits."

1. please stop saying cat tit.

2. At this point im struggling yall. @ what point in my life was my self esteem so weak, my standards so low and my eyes so blind that i'd actually befriend a woman whose hair that is reminiscent of feline mammaries?

Think. Think. Think.

I know my grandmom and we are not going to get off this topic until she makes me remember who she's talking about. I don't even bother trying to switch subjects.

So i'm laughing and thinking until finally it dawns on me.

"ohhhh! you mean S_____!"

"yes!" she says, relieved. "I knew you'd remember! How is she?"

So we're both overjoyed with the revelation of a lifetime when it occurs to me:

cat tit?

Im thinking of my girl S's hair. When my grandmom met her she was wearing her hair in bantu knots. It was summer and it was an easy style for her. I thought it was cute, but apparently it struck my grandma as a dead ringer for cat titties.

"She's good...she had another baby."

Speaking of which, lets discuss how this girl is two years my junior, married and has two kids. Ok lets not. I'm focused mannn!

And before my grandmom could ask -

"She doesn't wear her hair like that anymore though. Its straight now."

"Well good. That hair was ugggleeee."

This was saturday.

AND THEN TODAY(i told yall this one was long)

We're in the kitchen again, talking - why is it that the best conversations happen in the kitchen? - and she's telling me about her teen years when it was all going down in the 803. I've heard these stories about a billion times but they're always a riot, so i don't mind the repetition. That doesn't stop my mind from wandering though. Charge it to the game.

So im thinking about how i feel like i gained 5lbs and im scared to get on the scale to check and see, but my clothes still fit me nice so i shouldn't be too worried and dashitall i must stop the late night snacking -

"...stinky kitty kat"

These three words © stevie - break me out of my reverie. I missed what she was saying but something tells me it bears repeating.

"Say that again?"

"Oh i was just saying that emmalene had a stinky kitty kat."

"kitty kat?"

Before you go giving me the crazy face, i know what a kitty kat is. At least in modern slanguage. Fall back. What i don't know is if she knows what a kitty kat is, or if she is even talking about what i think she's talking about. She could be referring to a literal kitten for all i kn-

"Her pooky smelled bad."

I giggle - embarrassed. Oooh grandmom said pooky!

Oh, yall don't know what a pooky is? My bad. Pooky is my fam's word for v-a-g-i-n-a. Growing up thats just what we called it. In fact i thought this was what everybody called their hoo-ha, until i started hearing of people with the nickname pooky(pookie?), which really weirded me out. And of course, going to school and discovering that the favored word was coochie, among girls at least. In fact i never met anybody else that called it pooky until my filipino SO told to me that the same word was used in tagalog as slang for a woman's nether regions. This means two things, my family isn't alone, and I also might be part pinay.

Oh yeah! I gotta share this one with yall too(im almost done i swear)

The other day my dad was talking about how women stay in abusive relationships, because the men always apologize and control the woman's mind with that most potent persuasion, "make up sex."

How bizarre is it discussing "adult topics", with fam? Its like; "i appreciate that you recognize im grown - but please, not like this." Lets not be that candid, thanks!!!

Yes, my dad said make up sex around me. First of all i don't want my dad knowing that i even know what sex is, much less the concept of make-up sex. Second of all, since when did my dad feel free to say such a thing around me, his daughter? In his eyes i should be forever innocent - in fact if he considered me as asexual i wouldn't care. My children - His grandchildren - will be conceived brave new world style and delivered by stork. In fact thats how i came into existence as well. Grossly inaccurate? I don't give a hoot. Tell me sweet little lies.