Overheard on the swings at Well's Road Baptist Church in Ventura California circa 1982.

Noemi:  "Sal, your ears are disgusting.  EEEEWWW  Look at that earwax!  EEEWWWW!"  (Important interjection.  Sal is not a girl.  Sal is short for Salvador, her younger brother who was my age.)

Chautona:  "You've been talking too much Sal."

Sal:  "What?????"

Chautona:  (With complete and utter confidence)  "The more you talk, the more earwax your body produces.  I think it must have something to do with softening the sound from the sound waves being so near the ear.  I don't know.  I just know that the more you talk the more earwax."

Noemi:  "That's crazy.  Who told you that?"

Chautona:  "My mom."

Noemi:  "I think she was pulling your leg."

I gave Noemi a look.  She should know better.  She knows my parents.

Chautona:  "MY mom?"

Silence.  I had a point.  Strong argument for my case.

You see, my parents were always strictly truthful with me.  They didn't tell me I was better at things than I was, let me win games, or tell me that shots don't hurt.  Santa Claus was DAD and no amount of convincing by my cousin would ever sway me again.  Dad said so and that was that!  I never doubted their word on any subject no matter how ridiculous it might sound.  Noemi knew this.  She couldn't conceive of my parents telling me that my eyes would stay frozen if I crossed them and things like that.  Sal was still skeptical and threw a few more barbs my way but even Noemi considered the subject closed.

It was two years later on a cold Missouri winter night that I said something to mom about earwax and talking too much.  Mom shook her head in disbelief.  "Who told you that?"  She was laughing. 

I stared at her in shock.  "Mom, you told me that.  When I was about five."

"Well, if I told you anything like that at all you must have been talking too much and I wanted to shut you up."

I stared at her.  MY mom???  M-Y 100% ALWAYS honest mother who never played games with me???  I couldn't believe it!  I remember going over everything I could think of that might have been a possible ploy for self-preservation.  I've never found another one though.  I did wonder about mom's jokes about different foods putting hair on your chest when I found a stray hair growing on mine once.  I decided it was a fluke and it really was a joke.

I'm sure I was right.  It had to be a joke.  Mom laughed.  She wouldn't say something so serious and then laugh about it!

Would she?