YOU LITTLE BASTARDS

Let me tell you about my afternoon yesterday. 

Starting in the morning: I ditched school to help my mom go find something to wear to a special dinner party. It was going to be a good day. I didn’t have to go to school, I got to sleep in, and I got to spend the day with my mom. How we were going to spend the day ended up a lot different then expected. Starting off the day right, I made sautéed  veggies with a touch of scrambled eggs, drank some coffee, and started my new book. My mom went to the doctor and returned with a few shots in her elbows for her skin disease. We drank coffee, discussed the afternoon, and planned our (expected to be) great day. We were going to go to the mall, get a few cute items, go through my moms closet like we were Stacy and Clinton from “What Not To Wear,” get lunch at Whole Foods (my favorite place) and then pick up my little sister. Then we were going to get mom ready for her night and I was going to go to work. Easy peezy lemon squeezy... or so we thought.

First incident: After taking forever to decide and try on clothes, we settled on two cute matching dresses for the each of us from Daisy Shoppe. Finally at the cash register, scanning my adorable and definitely “necessary” items, my card gets declined.....embarrassing but deal-able. 

“The bank is just part of life, always there to screw you up. But, they want your business more then the money they charged you, so don’t fret buttercup.”

Turns out when I called the bank two days prior, they had charged me for stopping some scam system from charging me. So, frustrated and embarrassed, I put the items on hold and left to go call the bank. Sitting on a bench outside the sun, getting the situation worked out and finally simmering down, my mom starts playing with my hair. 

This is a known thing in my family, playing with each others hair is our way of affection. When someone is upset, we stroke their head. Crying, screaming, yelling, laughing, stroking each other’s head is like drinking water in the Hughes household. We are kind of like a group of chimpanzees, grooming each other affectionately. 

Second incident: While my mom was playing with my hair, she started pulling on a few strands. Finally off the phone, she nervously asks me to tilt my head into the sun. A weird sight it must have been, a 17 year old sitting outside the mall, with her mom digging through her hair like a couple of jungle monkeys. 

“Um, honey, did you put that dry shampoo in your hair this morning?”

I was having a particularly greasy hair day so I borrowed my sisters dry shampoo. 

“Yea, why?” I said nervously

“Does it kind of clump up around the ears sometimes?”

I knew where she was going with this so I began to rattle on about the processes and effects between the oil and dry shampoo, the same BS routine trait I gained from my father. 

We left to go look for some shoes for my moms fancy dinner party and on the way to Burlington Coat factory, I broke into a million pieces. Upset over the possibility of lice.  We pulled over in a secluded sunny part of the parking so she could meticulously dig through my hair again. We eventually decide to go pick up my sister from school, just in case it was lice, my sister would most likely have it too. 

On the way to pick her up, a familiar nauseous feeling built up in my gut. Another trait I gained from my father’s side, deep, dark, heavy, burdening, violent, vicious, anger. 

(Although, anyone and everyone who’s ever met my dad would know he is the kindest, most loving and gentle man alive, he just blows steam through his ear every once in a while, just like me)

Fun fact: I’ve got a really bad temper. 

As I cursed the world and all its inhabitants, my mom worried if the depth of my anger and detail of my curses would end in a violent and rash act of rebellion. Good thing my bark is worse then my bite. 

She reminded me of my grounds I needed to stick to. Dealing with this blood raging, red facing anger is something I will always have to live with.

“Anger is a secondary emotion. It comes from sadness. You are extremely upset, so you become extremely angry. It’s ok to feel anger, you should feel anger, however with your unique anger, like your aunt, uncle, dad, and grandpa, you have to learn to control it and release it in a healthy way.” 

This is very true for me. Another fun fact: I hate feeling my emotions. So much so that I will suppress them until I explode over something like a broken pencil, after not getting angry over bigger more reasonable things. I’m working on it. 

As she questioned my anger’s intensity, I thought of the most radical, vicious, tremendous, adventurous, act of rebellion I could muster up. Calmness. 

All the devil wants is for me to lose my temper, it is his greatest goal in life because he knows how it hurts me. Yet, the most rebellious act against mankind, against the world, against everything and anything, against me and my anger, is to be even closer to God. 

BOOM, take THAT Lucifer! 

As the story goes, I had nits, the little bastards. Nits are lice eggs. They are obnoxiously   tiny and take two weeks to hatch into lice. Thank the Lord we caught them when we did. 

Even though it is a prodigiously difficult thing to have to deal with, I enjoyed sitting in the sun as my mom dug through each and every hair follicle; combing and snipping every few difficult strands, while reading my new book. We did get to spend time with each other, between the loads of laundry and the poison shampoo showers, we still got to sit in the sunshine chatting up a storm. 

Mom: “Oh, I think I cut that one in half, ha, take that you little bastard...Die all you little shits,” she said through a light hearted smile. 

Me: “I believe these are demonic creatures on my head, spiritually attacking us because we have been so deliberate about God lately. We are in the full cross-hairs of the devil, so he sent his little bastards into MY cross-hairs as revenge.”

Mom: “Touché, Devil. Too bad we’re stronger.”