|
epitome of incomprehensibility
|
Elementary school trick: "Say 'I', spell 'cup', and then say 'in funny colours.'"
Gullible and/or curious, I obeyed.
Laughter. "You said 'I see you pee in funny colours!'"
...
But I questioned the embarrassment factor of that statement. Wouldn't it be more embarrassing to BE the one peeing in funny colours?
I seem to recall another version that had the victim spell 'cup' backwards. Harder for a small, fast-growing brain to compute, it resulted in "I pee, you see," with the rest unchanged.
The syntax complexified, the embarrassment amplified. But then also mitigated by the delight in calculating right and in saying something goofy, provided the teasers weren't too malicious. The proclamation in mock solemn tones, repeated: I PEE, you see, in funny colours!
...
It's not always body horror when body parts or excretions take on odd colours, but it still startles.
There are recurring ones, to eliminate the obvious and thematically connected first: bloodless but alarming red pee? Beets, their pink juice tinting the yellow urea. Greenish poop? Thanks, spinach!
Then there's the most recent: bits of black and grey snot this morning. An unnoticed nosebleed scabbing up? And then I remembered: sweep-sweep-sweeping the dusty doormat before my uncle and his partner arrived for breakfast. Dust to dust, you necrotic-or-not tissue.
And then there's an unaccountably vivid memory: the blue tongue in a mirror. That was when Grandpa was still alive and I was going to Cedar_Christian_Academy, so I must have been eleven, twelve, or thirteen. School was already making me anxious; applied candy wasn't a panacea, however blue it was. So I wasn't thinking about what I had just eaten when I caught my reflection in the dusty mirror going downstairs. Naturally, my mouth was open a little. Unnaturally, my tongue was bright cerulean. My mouth opened more. Such an alien hue! Such a surreal trespass on what should be a familiar face - my own!!
And then I remembered eating the candy. A sour-sweet sheet? A popsicle? Whatever blue thing it was, it brings a pleasant melancholy now.
|
260724
|
