There is a line from When I Grow Old I Shall Wear Purple by Jenny Joseph
that says “I shall learn to spit.” I aspire to spitting, myself. As it is, I was born into this world a prim and proper lady. My mother swears to this. It was nothing I planned to do; it’s just sort of who I am. I remember my friend’s mother saying, “Why can’t you look like Vicki. You look like you’ve just been pulled through a knothole backwards.”

In spite of the fact that my demeanor is prim, as a kid I told dirty jokes I heard from my father. He owed a pharmaceutical company and called on doctors. His entree was a joke and I loved hearing them. He gave the nurses boxes of chocolates during the year, so there was often a large cardboard box of them in our home. We felt so rich with chocolates that we would bite into them and put them back if we didn’t like them. My mother finally insisted that we pinch them instead of biting them. Makes sense now, but at the time, that was real persecution.

If I learn to spit, I can also learn to do what I want and say how I feel. There can be nothing more therapeutic than a loud, unaffected burp. My grandmother had burping down pat. She did the burping and my father took care of the flatulence. We called it “expelling gas.” And there was quite a lot of it expelled, I must say. But I remained a lady.

But I am still looking altogether too prim. When is it going to be my time to strut my stuff and how do ladies do this? I do have an active funny bone, but usually I save it for writing funny. I need to exaggerate myself so as to make people notice. Being under the radar all your life is rather boring. Anybody got a feather boa?

My writing is usually serious, but I also have Spirituality Light and Swami Z. I suspect he came to live with me to loosen me up a bit. So for heaven’s sakes, have a piece of candy. You can pinch it and put it back and I’ll eat it. And I would certainly appreciate a small donation to buy another box. I write better with candy in my mouth....Love and Happy Valentine’s Day :)