Normal/abnormal

Sometimes I say that there are things that happened when I was growing up that I took as normal everyday occurrences. Not until much later in life that do I realize, hey, maybe that.. wasn't.... so... normal. I am often unable to provide an example of one of these things, but today while doing H's hair, I remembered a good one.

When we lived in Mexico, my mom had a friend. (I am resisting the urge to write "friend". Friend, boyfriend, I don't really know- he was at the house all the time and they hung out a lot for many years. We'll leave it at that.) The friend was a vet student in the beginning of their relationship, and a vet at the end of it. We had a ton of animals in the house. You can see where this is going.

So, one day, I was 15ish, I was on the way into the kitchen to get a drink, only to be diverted my my mom and her friend who were neutering my cat on the dining room table. Our kitchen had 2 entrances, I was advised to go around. Not through the dining area/operating room. Come to think of it, we ate dinner there not so long afterwards. There was a stainless steel operating table in the tv room. Why didn't they use that? (I forgot about the operating table until just now. Its all coming back. Yikes.)

A little while later, I went towards the kitchen again to get something else, my mother came running out of the dinning area holding cat testicles cupped in her hand. I think she was on her way to bring them up to my room to show me. I still have no idea why she was so excited to be holding cat testes, or why she was so eager to show them to me. And this is just the kind of thing she'd deny ever happening. But it is etched in my memory. The image in my memory looks remarkably like this:



For some time now, whenever I do H's hair using this particular apparatus, I think "cat testes". This morning I said to myself, hey wait a minute.. maybe its not.... so... normal.. to think "cat testes" this frequently while making pony tails.

Thats my normal abnormal tale for the day. Believe it or not, none of this struck me the least bit odd at the time.

(Excuse the crappy photo! My camera refused to participate in hair elastic/cat testes, and broke when I tried to take this picture. I had to use my phone, which apparently isn't as particular about subject matter.)