Best for Dipping, Dressing and Sauce. Also, scapegoating.
One time, my sister, after hearing Madonna’s Like a Virgin, asked my mom what a virgin was. I was older than Bridget by nearly five years, and so I had a vague idea what Madonna was singing about. We were in the kitchen and I stood there transfixed, waiting for the inevitable train wreck of an explanation. I knew enough to know my mom was in deep shit and I wasn’t about to miss it.
“A virgin?” my mom said, trying to stall. She glanced around the kitchen looking for help. “Well it’s like how olive oil is. Olive oil that has virgin on the label is extra good, and expensive and has good olives in it with olives from Italy that they press until olive juice comes out and sometimes I buy it from the grocery store. And you know, I cook with it, you know that spaghetti sauce you like? So there’s virgin olive oil in that. Or extra virgin olive oil, I’m not sure. Anyway, virgin is good. And extra virgin olive oil is even better. Mostly. I mean that’s what people say. But sometimes you can use regular olive oil and nobody notices. Your dad doesn’t.”
And my sister walked off wondering why the eff Madonna was singing about olive oil.
You gotta be careful as parents to avoid these conversations. Because eventually they’re going to find out what a virgin is and they’ll remember your sad babbling about olive oil and they’ll think, wow, my mom’s kind of a moron. I have managed to avoid these conversations so far, though there are only a few sands left in that hourglass. Anytime now I’ll be stumbling through an explanation of baby making complete with metaphors about seed planting. When I was pregnant with the twins, one of Hazel’s preschool friends looked at my belly and said, “How are the babies going to get out?” I too commenced with the pathetic babbling and eventually said, “They’ll come out from my legs.” “Like your knees?” he asked. “Sorta, yeah,” I said. He took a long look at my kneecaps and decided that not only was that clearly false but he’d engaged in conversation with a lunatic.
So yeah, watch out parents. Tell the truth or at least tell a convincing lie. I’m working on one myself about where babies come from. It involves olive oil and kneecaps.
