Several years ago, my husband Justin and I were in a Walmart parking lot –
Birthplace of Many a Curiosity – when, in the next row over, we watched an old couple tumble down the steps of a Winnebego that looked to have that parking lot as its address.
The couple, clearly so far past the honeymoon phase it was like they were viewing it from space, was locked in a physical fight, and their behavior made it obvious that once you actually LIVE at a Walmart you completely stop caring what anyone thinks.
All I saw was gray hair(?) and a cloud of dust as a lopsided looking chihuahua looked on like it wasn’t the first time from the trailer’s landing.
It appeared the dog was rooting for the woman, and like maybe the man owed him some money.
I don’t know how I knew this. You can just tell some things.
The scene played out like a movie, and (on brand with many things that take place at a Walmart) Justin and I found ourselves unable to look away.
For a second, the man had the woman pinned, and I looked around to see if anyone else was watching, but unfortunately the only person around was one with only one eye facing our direction, and the other facing a direction no one could see.
Suddenly, mid-tussle, the man jumped up, feeling all over his mouth, a stunned expression on his face, and this is when he said a phrase we would go on to quote for decades –
A Key Family Phrase:
(Justin would even say to our baby granddaughter when she head-butted him today)
“DANG IT, GINA! YOU KNOCKED OUT MY LAST GOOD TOOTH!”
Who could have predicted that 5 minutes in a Walmart Parking lot would become a part of us, much like a random bystander in the background of a family photo that never has any idea you have an album in your home that bears their face?
If there is anything we love in this family, though, it’s a good, repeatable phrase.
Growing up, the King Phrase of our family was undoubtedly “Is that cow dead?!”
This phrase came from the fact that we lived near a dairy, and my mother, who was not raised around animals, had never been taught that animals also sometimes need rest.
Her experience with cows came from the pages of board books, where cows stood all the time, grazing by a red barn on the side of a hill next to a farmer in a straw hat.
Therefore, every time we passed the dairy and she would look over and see one peacefully enjoying the afternoon shade, she would go on red-alert, just sure they were dead, and no one else seemed to care like she did.
My brother and I could sense the “Is That Cow Dead” squint coming on for a quarter mile, when she would begin scanning the horizon as we drove closer to them.
She was always on the lookout, concerned for their wellbeing, just sure that one day she would finally be right, vindicated as the Lone Cow Advocate, and we would be attending a cow funeral,
looking real apologetic for our doubt of her before we got there.
There was the fact that when my now 17 year old daughter, Chloe, was a toddler, she was adamant that we all had to repeat a phrase she had made up every night when we put her to bed in order for her bedtime ritual to feel complete.
She would literally not sleep without the phrase being said, and if we forgot it she would call us back to start the whole bedtime routine from the beginning.
Let’s try this again.
This phrase was “Good night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the poopy come.”
She felt like this was a perfect end to a long toddler day.
I felt like it was some sort of ad for better digestive health.
For some reason that “Don’t let the poopy come” has been a thing we’ve held onto, and whispered creepily to each other often, almost like a threat.
At my oldest daughter’s baby shower, when the task was presented to write a special phrase on a diaper to cheer up the late-night diaper changes for the new mom, of course my diaper contribution had a big black sharpied, “DON’T LET THE POOPY COME” on it.
How was I to know the pastor’s wife would grab a microphone and then read all of them?
Oh well, at least mine was better than what my 11 year old, Paige, wrote.
When she realized they were about to read hers, that girl took off running and hid.
I’m sure it sounds like we have our own language sometimes as a family to people who are just listening in.
They don’t know about Walmart, or letting the poopy come, or a cow in the grass that just might be dead.
All I know is our family phrases make me remember, and make me laugh.
My granddaughter, Mavis, may not know why Pops said she knocked out his last good tooth when she lurched and head-butted him,
or who that lady Gina is,
but one day she will if this family has anything at all to do with it.
Does your family have a “Family Phrase?
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
