The demise of the lump month,Heart-wrenching Childhood Anecdote #546, and voodoo
It’s the last day of that utterly fizzless, lumpy, stodgy month. February is dead, long may live March!

Now, I have some serious matters for you tonight. Sorry about that.

1. What did you wear as a 2 year old?
Times were hard, money was scarce, baby clothes too came in orange and various shades of brown, and, one day far too early, I was born.
Almost as soon as I’d popped out, my mother had to go back to work to feed us both as well as the cat and the chickens (we had chickens), so she had to arrange daycare. I am told –we joke about it- that one day, she came by to pick me up after her exhilarating shift at the Michelin tyre factory, about an hour earlier than normal; she found me unclean, apparently unfed since morning and passed out on a chair in a corner next to the caged canary. I was also tied up to that chair, to make sure I wouldn’t fall off. She scooped me up, yelled abuse at the ‘nanny’, kicked a few items of furniture for good measure, slammed the door and that was that. In the 70s you didn’t go to the police over this kind of stuff. It was merely unfortunate; at the most, you screamed and kicked and then got over it.

2. I sometimes wonder if this might be the cause of my instinctual distrust of fag smoking mumsie types /birds/strangers/everybody, as well as the overwhelming claustrophobia I feel when I’m in somebody else’s house and I have to wait it out. Wait, for them to look after me, waiting for me to matter but feeling like I won’t, ever. Waiting to be picked up, waiting for the duty to be over and the door to open and the time to leave, leave, be out of here!.
Who knows?

3. Now, try to remember. When you cried as a child, when you hurt yourself, what happened? Did you ever feel you had to apologize for scabby knees, grazed cheeks, broken skin? What words did you hear that day you tumbled down the flight of stairs and burst into tears and hiccups and snot? And the times you fell off the apple tree and fell on your head but no-one believed you because, surely, if you had really fallen on your head, you would have died, so there was no reason to make such a fuss and stop being such a baby? Younger even, a toddler, when you cried, were you distracted, look at the doggie/telly, look and forget right now, hypnosis-like, or did you get picked up and soothed? Or rather, were you ignored or teased or reprimanded for seeking attention? Were your tears dried, was your pain acknowledged? Go on, let it all out.. Big girls don’t cry. you could be more careful, now blow your nose and if you hust yourself again don’t come running back to me.

4. What happens to you when big girls don’t cry? Where does it all go, then, the tears and the pain? What do they need to be careful of, not grazing their knees, really? Or not disturbing/scaring the grown-ups?

5. Years later, I’ve let it all out. I’ve cried and cried and hiccupped and snotted and poked at the bruises and picked the scabs and looked underneath. No-one laughed. No-one distracted me. I have wallowed. for six whole months. Maybe I needed to stay there for that long and feel it, really feel it, instead of getting myself distracted. And I didn’t even apologize.( too much.)

Next time, to lighten up a bit, I’ll post dirty pictures of cartoon characters.

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Oh well, I had to share this "voodoo" knife rack. They should make custom head-shaped ones with the face of your choice, so you can start your day by stabbing your least favorite person in the world in the face repeatedly as you make breakfast. Oh, that's just mean. I would never do such a thing.