Story of the Day 5/ 19/ 2011

Always listen to your mother.
Not my mother. I don’t mean my mother, I mean your mother, and if you are one of my kids: Listen to me!

My son, Aaron, to be specific, has been getting in touch with his Deaf (with a capitol d) identity. He has been wandering around the house, the neighborhood, and the grocery store without wearing his hearing aids. Since he is deaf (with a small d), this means that any conversation you direct towards him will be unnoticed. As a result, numerous people think he is ignoring them. And if you ask him a question, he may very well just give you one of his rather annoying dumb- puppy smiles. As a result of this, numerous people think he is stoned.

Despite the fact that he will not listen, I mean hear, no I mean listen, I have, as always, been handing out scads of mommy advice. Things like, “ Don’t forget to take the directions with you! “ , “Don’t forget your keys!”, “Use your seatbelt!”, “Remember to flush the toilet!”, “Take your necktie off before you take a nap!” and “ Don’t put liquid ink pens in your pocket!”

If you look at the pocket of one of his favorite shirts you will discover two things, first, he didn’t listen to me, and second, (which will be the same thing that he found out,) his mother was right.

This sad end to his nice shirt happened a couple of days ago, but “Listen to your mother!” seems to have been the theme of the day, today.

I was standing in the line at the pharmacy counter in Wal-Mart. I was there to buy drugs.
I had driven over to the east side of town to visit with my cousin and take her out for shopping and lunch. Since her favorite store is Wal-Mart, we were at Wal-Mart. And while Kathy was off picking out toothpaste and deodorant I was trying to buy drugs- Sudafed, although the generic type. There are two kinds of people who stand on line at the pharmacy to buy Sudafed on a regular basis, people who like meth and people who have congested sinuses.
I like to think that I can pass as one of the latter, since I still have my own teeth.

I had managed to make my way to being next in line, and while I was standing behind a young man in black jeans, the young man reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, and something shiny and gold fell out of his pocket and onto the floor. While he quickly picked up his foil wrapped condom, I could hear a voice in the back of my head saying, “You should have listened to your mother! Keep your condoms in your wallet!”
Then I realized that he had listened to his mother, because he was using them, or at least planning on using them.

When we were leaving the store, we passed right by the same young man who was standing with his girlfriend in the checkout line; and the woman right behind the girlfriend yelped, “Don’t put that in your mouth! You don’t’ know where it has been!”
And, for a moment, I wondered if she was the young man’s girlfriend’s mother, but she was really just saying it to a child who was standing between them.