It's an Animal Thing

I drive quite a bit.  I like the feeling of moving along the road, with a view of green pastures on occasion. In Texas that's not a rare thing, even in a city as large as San Antonio. Small farms dot the landscape.  A strange thing happens to me when I pass a herd of cows.

I moo at the bovines.

I can't help it. I know that the cows can't hear me.  I know that they wouldn't care, even if they did.  They're cows, and more concerned with chewing than much else.  And knowing that doesn't mean a darn thing.  As soon as I see a cow, I moo at it.  This makes attending parties at ranches a bit awkward.

I've been doing this for years.  As long as I can remember, anyway.  I also bark at dogs, and meow at strange cats, but nobody comments on that.  I guess it is more socially acceptable to do that.  To moo at cows, on the other hand, is considered passing strange.

I was happy, some years back to find out that a name had been given to my malady.  Rich Hall, a comedian from the 80s, would make up words he called "Sniglets".  Among these I found the word "bovilexia", which is the uncontrollable urge to yell "moo" when passing a herd of cows.  That's it!  I thought.  And obviously, I can't be the only one who hollers at cows, since somebody up and made a word up to describe it.  What a relief, at least for me.  Not the poor cows, assaulted by the random 'moo' of passerby all day long.

Times have changed.  I've accepted my crazy. I even change it up on occasion.  These days, I pass other animals on my way to work, including goats, sheep, a llama and a donkey.  

I holler at the cows. "MOOO!!!" 

I holler at the llama.  "HEY LLAMA!!! WHAT'S UP?"

I holler at the donkey.  "YO DONKEY!!!"

I still holler at the goats and sheep, "BAA!", because sheep and goats don't have time for my shenanigans.

Creeped Out

When the movie The Exorcist came out, way back in 1973, I was an eight year old.  I did not see the movie in the theater, because my parents actually paid attention to the ratings on movies.  At least that is what they told me.  However, I can remember sitting in Mass on a Sunday during that year, and listening to the priest discuss the film in his homily.  Apparently, after seeing the film, every single person on the planet decided that they too must be possessed.  The priest described the hysteria; even religions that didn't believe in hell were calling about exorcisms.  Sitting in the pew next to my mom, my brother asleep and drooling on my shoulder, I sat wide-eyed, and absorbed every sentence as gospel.  This must be some movie, I thought, if people were just getting possessed by watching it.  I decided that I did not really want to see The Exorcist.

However, I became a teenager, which means that my decision-making skills took a hit.  The Exorcist was being shown on television one Friday evening when it was just my mom and I in the house.  It was on one of the networks, because 47,000 channels wasn't a thing yet.  If a movie was "edited for television", that mean the horrible bits were cut out of what was shown, so the producers could horrify us instead with bad commercials.

So my mother and I headed to our 1970s style family room(complete with brown shag carpeting on the walls! and mirror tiles!) in the basement of our house in Silver Spring, Maryland, popcorn in hand, and parked ourselves on the couch.  For the most part, the beginning of the movie was relatively benign--an actress moves into a home in Georgetown--which was just a few miles away from where we sat--and things start happening to her daughter, and yeah...well.  

Catholics take their demonic possession very seriously.   From the cradle, we live in fear of something happening to our immortal souls. We're raised on the perils of Ouija boards, and reminded constantly not to mess with the dark side of the universe.  The devil is THE Boss of Bosses in the game of life, and it's game over if he gets you.  And even if the rational side of your brain tells you that some of what you're hearing is complete hooey, there's always that tiny little voice in the darkest part of your brain that believes.  Even sitting in a ridiculously decorated room with all the lights on, I couldn't help looking over my shoulder every now and then, just to make sure nothing was there.  Weird noises from the darkness outside made me jump.  If I felt this terrified watching an "edited for television" version, I could only imagine what those poor people in the theater felt. 

When the movie ended, I felt as though my hair should be singed from being so close to a demon, even if it were an imaginary one on television.   I was very glad that I had worn my miraculous medal in preparation for the movie, but I slept with the lights on, anyway.  At least I would be able to see what was coming.  

The next evening, my mother and I sat in St. Michael's Catholic Church, waiting for evening Mass. The priest walked up the aisle to the altar and bowed while we all sang.  I stared hard at Father Sweeney as he stood up at the front, reading the prayers at the beginning of the service.  The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

"Mom!"  I whispered. "Mom! Doesn't Father Sweeney look just like Father Damian from The Exorcist?" 

My mom just nodded. 


I used Mamakat's World Famous Writer's Workshop Prompt:
2.) Write about something that creeped you out.  Go check out the other writers!

A to Z: Quirky

Quirky is how I used to see myself.  Others would call me odd, weird, or just plain nuts over the years, but I never saw myself that way.  I suppose that it is normal to have a view of yourself that is a bit biased, or is that quirky as well?

Quirks just are. 

There's not necessarily a rhyme or a reason to the oddness that is me.  I didn't inherit my love of word play from a long lost relative, so genetics is certainly not to blame.  I love language not necessarily because of what it says, but for how it sounds.  Puns, double meanings, and other manipulations of the language are fascinating to me, like the inner workings of a well cared for timepiece.

But that's weird, right?  Most of the time, no one else around me catches the joke.  If I'm the only one laughing, is it still funny?  Probably.  That's another one of my quirks--I laugh at things that no one else seems to find funny.  Something falls, a person makes a comment, a dog shows up, a completely random event--and I will giggle, or outright guffaw.  It's rather embarrassing.  (I also laugh inappropriately in some situations, out of anxiety, but that's not necessarily a quirk, but a faulty survival mechanism.)

I have an almost visceral reaction to someone biting their fork, which is a quirky sort of quirk. (See what I did there?) It's like nails on a chalkboard annoying, and the sound causes my entire body to clench up as if I'm having a seizure.  This makes visits with my friend Evil Laura a little interesting; one of her quirks is to never let her lips touch her fork.  Luckily, I am as tolerant of the quirks of others as I can be.

Quirks just are. 

When I was a kid, I wasn't happy about my quirks.  I grew into them over the years, and now I believe they fit me, a well worn security blanket.  There's comfort in my quirks.  I'm sure that I'll have them my entire life, and it's likely that I'll find more them them along the way.  That's what being human is all about--the quirks make us ourselves. 

What quirks do you have?



 

See That Face?

I do. Everywhere I go, as a matter of fact. My brain is just programmed to look for faces in both living and nonliving things. Matrixing, I think it is called?

Still, it is weird. Right?

Random Leftovers

While we were visiting a local hamburger place, I took Zane into the bathroom to wash his hands and found this sign:

 How dire must the situation be that the owners of this establishment were compelled to use the word "implore" in a sentence?  When I see that word, I picture a man down on his knees, his hands clasped together, fervently beseeching me.  Sadly, I think that they overestimated the vocabulary of their patrons, but I adored this sign.  I love words, and seeing them being used in what are now unusual ways gets my corpuscles doing a happy dance.  And not in a tachycardia sort of way.

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Zane has wanted to watch the movie Rio at home several times.  I guess that they were showing it at his school.  He's seen the film so many times that he is now pulling quotes and reciting them during play.  The other day he was racing around the house, fighting in an epic battle of some sort.  He was yelling at the top of his lungs.  What was he yelling?

"You wanna piece of meat?" is what he was yelling.  Larry and I immediately knew that Zane was imitating a line from the film Taxi Driver, which he has never seen.  He apparently acquired a phrase or two from watching Rio, and we didn't have the heart to tell him that he was misquoting.  Maybe later.  Years later.  Once we can stop laughing about it. 
 
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A few weeks ago, I noticed that Zane kept stopping on the field.  He would kneel down and press a fist to his forehead.  Then he would get up and run once more.  Finally he was near enough to me that I could talk to him.

"What the heck are you doing, son?"   I thought for sure that he was stopping to examine a fire ant mound, as boys are prone to do.  Instead, he surprised me.

"Mom! I am TRYING to use The Force!" Rolling his eyes at my sheer stupidity(because how on earth could I not KNOW that?), Zane ran off again.   Larry, the big Star Wars fan in the house, was so proud when I shared this story.

///

All three of us wedged ourselves into theater seats to see Iron Man 3 this weekend.  We all found it very entertaining.  My quibbles were minor, as they did not diminish my enjoyment of the film.  One of my quibbles is the music.  The first two Iron Man movies had very heavy metal music involved, and it is expected that the third movie should have kept that trend.  My other kvetch?  Where the heck are the police?  All sorts of shenanigans going on, and no police men?  Not a single one?  Eeek!  I do not want to live in that city! 



Good Lord!  Go visit Stacy today!