I like things ... Other than Fletcher's Castoria...October 26, 2018

I Like Things Essay October 26, 2018

I like some things.  But, to be fair, there are some things that do not live up to expectations. 

There are two words which I wish I could erase from my childhood:  Fletcher’s Castoria.

I like people who remember, “Fletcher’s Castoria”.  If you do remember it, you recall the most foul-tasting, super-blaster laxative in the history of ever.  A complete gut cleaner… It was Castor Oil on Steroids and tasted like Fido’s ass.  (Using imagination, not research here…)

I was only absent once in Mrs. Moser’s second grade class.

One day.

I stayed one block from the school at my Granny Goddard’s house.  I had a fever.  Granny gave me some Fletcher’s Castoria—and about twenty minutes later, I was running to the Granny’s immaculate bathroom and doing a ‘big job’… I felt so much better.

Immediately.

She had blue toilet paper which matched her blue tiled walls, blue bathtub and blue toilet. 

So, my one smirch of absence was due to constipation.

I like that my parents had us say, “Tee Tee” and “Big Job”.  When I got to kindergarten, the teacher asked me if I needed to go Number One or Number Two?  “First off, lady, I am in Kindergarten…. I don’t know how to count—that is YOUR job.  Secondly… I needed to Big Job.”

Is my family the only one who used the term, “Big Job”—something bigger than Tee Tee or Wee Wee. 

Ok… back to the things I like…

I like being regular with my constitution.

I like to say, “water is still standing”, knowing full well that water does not stand like a human.  But, we did have a massive rain last week, and water… is still standing.

I like when people say, “I’m gonna go crunch the numbers”, “Let me get you some more ‘covers’ and we will make a pallet for you to sleep on…”, and, “Well, he doesn’t suffer in silence.”

I like that when I say “Yale” or “Yell”, they sound the same.

I like people who DON’T say:  It is what it is; ‘at the end of the day’; skill set; ‘the new normal’ or “it’s all good”…  I prefer people who say words like, “pixilated” and not mean anything to do with digital pictures.

I like to use the words:  sketchy, wacky, chagrin, and ‘shoulda woulda coulda’. 

I like it when I hear “Sweet Georgia Brown” and remember the (more than once) time we saw The Harlem Globetrotters with Meadowlark Lemon and Curly (?)—They always played the same team… The Washington Nationals (?) and always lost.  Meadowlark always had a water bucket (you thought) and was going to throw it at someone who ducks, and all this confetti flies out… I got confetti all over me once and no matter how many times I saw this, I always was amazed it wasn’t water.

I like pipe dreams (and love to walk behind someone smoking a pipe; smells so good; but I’ve never tried one)…I like goobers (which are peanuts); hot Dr Pepper with lemon; I wish that hats would come back in style for men. 

I am color blind in that I cannot (for reals) tell the difference between black and navy blue.  But, I am glad that this disability has not held me back.

I like to drive by myself so that I can listen to the same song 27 times and no one ‘belly aches’.  I like to say after a long drive, “We made good time.”  I like to never go below quarter tank of gas.  I like to follow all the owner’s manual guidelines with my vehicles, and have always had a ‘no food, no smoking, no sweet drinks, no dogs’ in my vehicles.  (I’ll tell you all about my car passion, later, and the girl who threw up in the backseat of my new car, first day I had it.) 

My cousin told me I should eat in the car.  I told him, “But there would be crumbles under the seat and smell and petrify.”  He said to consider that ‘stuck-in-a-frozen-ditch-and-survivor-existed-on-underseat-crumbles.’ 

I don’t like anyone to say, “I know exactly how you feel.”  No, you can’t.  Feelings are as unique as fingerprints.

I think every man in Texas, upon tying ANY thing down in the back of a truck, will say, “That’s not going anywhere.”  I don’t argue but let’s hope it goes the same place your vehicle is going. 

And, I like that no one makes Fletcher’s Castoria anymore… but am leery about those corn dogs at the State Fair…