Rocket Surgeon: A person with less-than-stellar aptitude. A mixture of "rocket scientist" and "brain surgeon" This phrase describes a person who is neither.




Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Sunflower seeds anyone?

I have a nasty habit.
It's not as bad as picking scabs, slurping, or letting the dog lick my face after he just licked his boy parts however.
But some (my husband for one) may consider it pretty gross.


It's sunflower seeds.  I love them.  I have a spit cup from The Rambling Road Trip Vacation Bible School I taught one year.  I hide it in a special place in my cabinet so no one inadvertently drinks out of it.  I eat them while I blog.  I eat them while I drive.  I eat them while I watch TV.  If I were a junkie, sunflower seeds would be my crack pipe.

I truly believe with every ounce of my being that eating sunflower seeds takes talent. 
It's almost an art form.
None of that picking them up one by one, holding them between you finger and thumb as you gingerly crack them and then remove the seed.
No sirree bob.
You have to throw a handful in at a time, till your jaw poofs out, suck the salt, and spit out the shells.  If you can't eat them this way, you have no business eating them at all.  You've got to eat them until the tip of your tongue is raw. 

Ever since my niece Ashlynn was a wee little one, she's been eating sunflower seeds.  Of course in the beginning she wanted to just eat the whole entire thing, so I had to teach her.  I took great pride that she knew how to eat a sunflower seed unlike her sandbox peers.  She's a one by one kind of sunflower kid, but she can crack them with the best of us.  Give her time, give her time.

One summer, when she was about four or five years old, I as driving around town with Ashlynn in the back seat.  I was snacking on some sunflower seeds when she asked for some.  Oh, I'm stingy with them.  I hate sharing them.  What junkie likes sharing her crack pipe?  But even more than that, I hate wasting them, and to hand them off to a little pip squeak is about the most wasteful thing I could do.  I only knew she'd spill them in between the car cushions.
 But being the loving, affectionate, sacrificial auntie that I am, I passed her a handful with a mere cringe.  Several minutes passed, and I heard the window in the back rolling down. 
"What are you doing?  Are you throwing out sunflower seeds?  Quit that!"  I shrieked, "Quit wasting my sunflower seeds!  Give them to me if you don't want them!!"

I flopped my right hand back behind my head and held it there as she leaned forward and put sunflower seed after sunflower seed in my hand.  I popped them in my mouth, sucked off the salt, spit out the shells, chewed and swallowed them,  and then heard this wee little voice.....




"But Auntie............ they were in my butt."



Apparently, she needed both hands to crack open her shells one by one, so she sat them between her legs on the car seat, and as I gassed it at the red lights, they shifted up the legs of her shorts, until she pulled them out and placed them one by one in my hand.


I might as well go let the dog lick my face.  It couldn't be any worse could it?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

that's funny, angel. you kno i met a fan of yours, at our birthday party.(tony) she asked me if i had a daughter named angel. deba coleman is her name. she knew all about you and knew your hubby was a cowboy, knew about ash and your dogs. later on , babe

Angel said...

Wow. Neato. Cool.