Portia: Hello
.
Me: What’s your theory on colored snot?
Portia: Well, that depends. If it’s purple, I’d really be concerned.
Me: It’s subject to whom you ask, but somewhere between yellow and green.
Portia: Fever?
Me: No.
Portia: Green snot, no fever, no doctor.
Me: Exactly!
Portia: Mimi?
Me: Yes.
Portia and I go back all the way to the sixth grade. I don’t waste time identifying myself to her when she answers the phone. She knows who I am, and she talks a lot, and if I pause long enough to exchange pleasantries, she may go off about an informercial she saw on a bunion removal gadget, and I’ll hang up the phone an hour later dazed, not remembering why I called her in the first place…. Sometimes I get off the phone with her, and I can’t remember who I am.
Portia has three boys who range in age from 5 to 13, and she once helped me out with a massive poop explosion that required two mommies—one to hold the naked screaming baby over the tub and the other to hose off the little stinking offender. She did this willingly and without throwing up, and she didn’t end our friendship afterward. She is a rock.
I’m soliciting her advice because Mimi called me at work in a snit about Moose’s snot, except that Mimi somehow manages to have a conversation about snot without using the actual word, which she finds indelicate. She’s never been known to use the word “mucus” either.
Mimi: Moose has a dirty nose, and it’s green. They’re concerned at the Wee School. They think he may have the rhino virus.
I ask Portia what the hell the rhino virus is, and she tells me it’s a flippin’ head cold! My nerves are all shot thinking it was one of those jungle diseases, like Elephantiasis, or something. A head cold! PLUeeze!
I call Mimi, who has to hang up because she’s in the middle of attacking Moose with a Kleenex. She calls me back.
Me: Dr. Portia says, “Green snot + no fever = TLC, not doctor or meds.”
I say “snot” with emphasis, and I can sense her bristling over the offending word. She pauses and changes the subject.
Mimi: Have you noticed the scary rash crawling up Jax’s arm?
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LOL! Rhino Virus makes it sound so terrible! What a *whomp whomp* that it’s a head cold!
She sounds like a veritable font of positivity. 🙂
Mimi is slightly eccentric, and I love to tease her, but she’s actually a saint. She watches the boys, keeps them entertained and their little noses and bottoms cleaned; sometimes she even cleans my house. She organizes. If she sees that I need something, she goes out and buys it, and most days I’m too tired and overwhelmed to remember to say thank you. She really is the glue that holds the Beans together, and I’m grateful to have her.
Thanks for coming to visit! I LOVE the frog blanket!
Motherhood brings on the most random of conversations from snot color to poop consistency and rash descriptions. Glamourous, it ain’t. Worth it, it is.
And my kids smell weird when they’re sick. Do anyone else’s? Just wondering.
Sister, you said it!
It’s not the kids that smell funny–it’s the germs.
Lovely story. But I must say that, to my knowledge,there are no devices for bunions, only pain and/or surgery. I was surely regaling you with the joys of the PED EGG, which is truly the best way to remove callouses. You are so funny,Girl!
I couldn’t remember what it was, so I employed a little poetic license!
I love your voice! You are so authentic.
Love Portia too and her reckless foray into the world of “another child’s poop!”
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