Somebody Left Their Baby on the Bus

Jeremy drives a school bus, a half route (either morning or afternoon). Earlier in the week, he heard over the radio this, "Yeah, some girl left her baby on the bus. She's probably gonna need it." It was something along those lines. It was one of those computerized birth control babies they give out as a potential grade in high school health classes. We saw some former students at Sonic in Iuka yesterday sitting at the picnic tables with their robo-babies. Naturally, I congratulated them. hardy har!

I got to thinking, so I asked. "Hey, girls, how come I don't see any of the guys with those stinkin' babies?" They answered, "Well, Mrs. Smith, the boys get the option of writing an essay or keeping the baby over the weekend like us." Oh, ta-hell-no! Can you friggin believe that? They can impregnate, but they are not asked to participate in this program? Letter time! I'll write a letter that never gets answered. That's just an activity I participate in to keep my mind healthy and my blood pressure just slightly above where it should be.

To quote Napoleon Dynamite, "Gah!"

Sweet Jesus!

It wasn't long ago (inside of 8 years, that's not long ago, right?) that we were at the Wal-Mart Supercenter here in Corinth, Mississippi, to buy quick cheap sheets for our new mattress. We weren't quite married yet (uh oh), and I have a phobia of sorts of uncovered mattresses. We couldn't exactly borrow a sheet from his mom, and I was so paranoid that my mom would notice one of her ancient sheet sets missing. Jer parked in the fire lane, and I ran in to buy our soon-to-be consecrated 250 thread count sheets. Sidebar: this fitted sheet less than a year later came out of the washing machine with a burned hole in it. As I walked from the automatic doors back to the car with the best, most confident posture, a cliche work crew was boarding their own vehicle. One of them shouted, "Sweet Jesus!" Apparently, he was impressed, and I was, unfortunately, flattered. My fiance heard their appreciation and seconded it when I got myself in the car a little too quickly. There I was outfitted in Old Navy and Addidas, a total of $100 probably dressed me head to toe (and that is by my estimation $80 too much) sure I was going to be raped before I could enjoy some consensual premarital sexual relations.

I couldn't quite figure out why I felt like these men were going to try to rape me. I had been places before by myself, and I had been admired less tactfully I'm sure. I had learned about testosterone and its effects in biology class, so surely I should have passed it off. Over the months following "Sweet Jesus-gate," I started having kind of flashbacks of some things that happened to me when I was a little girl. While those nauseating events were not as brutal as they could have been, I felt disoriented and betrayed. Then it hit me. I feel scared about little nothing things, because of what happened to me when I was ten. The uncovered mattress thing, consequently, has everything to do with the psychology involved in my molestation. Now, I'm a statistic, pissed, and a little weepy.