Keep Your Mouth Shut

My dear loving sister-in-law is always telling me "Remember, keep your thoughts to yourself. Don't say those things out loud. People are going to think you're wierd". Usually she's referring to something blonde I have said. Well this time I wish she would have said it loudly to me, BEFORE I related a story to my son.

The other day I turned on both of the ceiling fans in our living room and for some reason it took me back to a time before I was a mother and even before I was a wife. Back to when I was about 20 or 21 years old and didn't hardly have a care in the world. I pointed to the celing fan and said to Austin "I remember going to a party at a friends house before I knew your dad. Back in those days (did I just really say "back in those days? oh geez...I'm getting so old!) soda came in the tall glass bottles with pop-top lids." "You mean like beer bottles have?" I sat there blinking wondering how in the world my 15 yr old son knew what kinds of lids beer bottles have, since neither Jay or I drink it, and therefore we never have beer in our house. Austin must have known what I was thinking because he jumped in with "I saw 'Frank' open a beer at the fair." Ok, heart attack averted...whew! I said "Yes, like the beer bottles have now. Anyhow, we were sitting there and we all watched a movie. Once the movie was over, things got a little boring so one of my friends decided to liven things up. He took one of the lids and flipped it up at the ceiling fan in the family room that belonged to the parents of my friend. That lid got flung from the ceiling fan like a rocket and it sent us into a fit of laughter. Thus began the great soda lid war of 1985. For a few hours we entertained ourselves by flicking lids up to the ceiling fan and then dodging them as they catapulted back at us. All the while we laughed so hard our sides ached. Yep, we were a mature bunch. Once the fun was over though, we noticed that the poor ceiling fan wasn't doing so well. It had nicks and scrapes all over it from the metal jagged edges of the lids. We felt bad, so we all pitched in and gave money to our friend to give to her parents to replace the fan. While we did feel bad about the fan, we had to admit it was worth it due to how much fun we had."

Question: Why do we parents feel compelled to share details like this to our offspring? Is it to prove to them that the geeks they know really were cool, fun-loving people 'back in the day'? Telling that story is something I will probably live to regret forever...

The next day I walk into the house only to find rubberbands all over the floor. There sits Austin giggling helplessly as he shoots a rubberband up into the ceiling fan, and then he nearly falls on the floor laughing as that rubberband goes whizzing by my head. I just stand there and look at him knowing this is all my fault. Without saying a word I leave the room thankful that at least it's rubberbands and not metal lids.