Things You'll Never Hear Coming Out of My Mouth

Recently my athletic daughter said, “I need to go get myself some new cleats.” For those of you who are not athletically inclined, I believe these are shoes with little pointy things on the bottom to help keep one upright during periods of rigorous activity. (Although I happen to know that upon occasion she purposely hurls herself onto a dusty dirty “base.” Why someone would do this, I do not know.)
Anyway, I decided right then, that those were some words that would never come out of my mouth; at least not in that particular order.

This got me to thinking about things I thought I would never say, but I have actually said since moving to the country.

The first occurrence happened the very first day we were up here. I asked Rancher Richie if he had moved the horses into the other pasture.
WHAT?
Who said that?
The only thing I have previously said about a horse is,
“Look! A horse!”

The next unbelievable thing I said was, “Could you put up a clothesline for me?”

Wait!
Did I just say that out loud?

I need to tell a little story here.

The summer I was ten years old, I had three younger siblings. One was an infant. This made for lots and lots of laundry. My mother decided it would be my never-ending chore to hang it all on the line and collect it when it dried ten minutes later. (Hey, it was summer in Oklahoma. Things dried quickly.)

The other thing I did that summer was sit on my front porch and play “Jacks” with my friend from down the street. I would get no farther than my Pigs-in-the-Pen level and I’d hear her call me to hang out another load of diapers. Aarg! I hated it!
I vowed to never own a clothesline when I grew up. And I have kept that vow until now. After all I didn’t want smoggy smelling sheets. Recently I decided to see if clothes would smell like sunshine out here in this beautiful country. They do. The country air dryer makes me bury my face in the sheets and breathe in the wonderful scent.

Then another outburst caused me to wonder who I had become. I was sitting here at my computer looking out the window at…
“Good Lord, there is a bull running down our driveway!”
(I found out later that it was a cow because it had one of those udder things hanging under it, but it had horns! I didn’t know that girl cows had horns. It had escaped from a neighbor’s pasture. Oh, those sneaky cows!

Here are a few more things I have said that make my mother wonder if I have been taken over by pod people:

“You know what I’d really like for Christmas? A compost bin.”

“I don’t need any new clothes. I have these cut off jeans, and my all-purpose dress.”

“Here chick, chick, chickies. I brought you some yummy cracked corn.” (I have been afraid of chickens all of my life. The way they look at you with one eye and all. And you never knew what they were going to do next! Creepy!)
Another:
“I love autumn. It is my favorite season.”
(Since I am a person who has measured her entire life in semesters, this is an amazing thing to hear coming out of my mouth! We used to call September the “S Month” just to keep from speaking the word aloud.)

More:
“Oh good kitty, you’ve brought me a lovely dead mouse. No, you cannot bring it in the house.”

“Look, the chickens are on the front porch watching me through the door.”

No, I do not want to go out for dinner.


Of course there are still a couple of phrases that one will not hear coming from my lips. One of them is,

“This recipe sounds delicious. I believe I’ll go shopping for all these unusual and exotic sounding ingredients and make this for dinner.” (Williams Sonoma is a store full of chores if you ask me.)

If I do this cooking thing, my family will think I have become possessed by the ghost of Julia Child and they will quickly arrange an exorcism.

I wonder what they’ll think when they get my hand made birth announcement for our new baby calf.