Where I Came From

My high school reunion was this past weekend so the family Piper hopped in the car and drove up to Memphis. Since AD was in the throes of yet another stomach bug (no, we do not feed her raw sewage. We're better parents than that! She was probably just really hungover) this was no piece of cake, but I must say we streamlined it thanks to our spring break experience. Instead of pulling over in Toejam, MS every time she felt icky, I pumped her full of Pepto, gave her a giant plastic cup for the vomitus and told JHP that God willing and the creek don't rise we were stopping for no man. Aside from some not inconsequential barf that collected on the side of the car after dumping out the puke cup at 80 MPH, we made it there relatively unscathed. Victory! Just in time for me to hit the Friday night party, and for more of this baloney:

it's never too early to figure out your personal favorite method of taking heroin

 

Your eyes do not deceive - that's AD getting another IV. Dad wanted to get ahead of the dehydration issue so he brought some stuff home from the hospital and basically set up a MASH unit in the family room. Fortunately Scooby Doo and the Goblin King drowned out the North Korean shelling.

 

I fled the scene so I could get my swerve on with the Hutchison girls. Before you judge, let me tell you that if you knew these people you'd totally make the same choice even if it meant leaving behind a sick kid. You'd even do it if it meant missing a global exclusive on the photographic rights to Tom Cruise taking it in the Sir Poopster from John Travolta (not that you'd necessarily want to see that, but you know what I mean); we are talking about excellent women here. Most of them, anyway, but that's different post altogether. Oy. Long story short: it was fabulous. Great to reconnect with old friends, reflect on our formative experiences and how we became the people we are. Good emotional shit, with wine, sausage wheels and lots of bad photographs.

 

While I was home I came across a certain Peter Mayle book that also made me think a lot about how I became who I am. I wish I could tell you that the work to which I refer is Toujours Provence or Chasing Cezanne and that it had inspired me to run off and carve out a little slice of heaven with some artisan cheese and a hot piece of Vincent Cassel ass, but no. It was the soul-scarring masterpiece of horror known as "Where Did I Come From?"  For those of you who didn't grow up in the 70's and/or have completely misguided parents, this was a book that explained reproduction in a way that was somehow both twee and explicit, complete with graphic cartoon illustrations. My mom gave it to me when I was eight, and it scared the living shit out of me.

 

 

I suppose I appreciate her intentions (and the desire to pawn off the sex talk to a book) but all it did was really gross me out. Parents just stand around totally nekkid? That would be cold. What's he doing ON her like that? Why don't they buy a bigger bed? And even at that tender age I knew something needed to be done about all that nasty 70's no-maintenance bush - it was the wild west down there. All in all the whole thing made me extremely uncomfortable.

this is so alleged

I did the only thing I could think of that could set my world back on its axis; I took the book to school and charged people a dime to look at it. It was time for some truth, second grade! Plus, I wasn't about to shoulder this misery on my own, and it was an easy way to make some walkin' around money.

What that little episode says about my character is probably not anything to be proud of, but there it is. I'd like to think that I've advanced significantly since then, that my go-to when faced with an uncomfortable situation is no longer to drag others down with me as well, but I'm not sure that's always true. I do try - I didn't even post the more disturbing pictures from the book (the bathtub scene! SWEET LORD THE BATHTUB SCENE!) which practically makes me a martyr, yes? You should send me money. Anyway, I do know two things that are true: that tiny bed still gives me space issues, and Hotel Pastis would be a much different book with afro-bush cartoons.