Thursday, December 23, 2004

ECD, MD, and I have taken to saying, “I’m anti...” to a lot of random things. To the three of us it’s a funny little joke, but I have to stop myself from using it and the accompanying hand gestures when I’m around, say, my family. Because it’s pretty self-explanatory, but it comes across as a little harsh to those who don’t understand the underlying story, which is as follows:

MD is a faithful Catholic and never misses Sunday AM mass. A couple of years ago, she was at mass when there was a rather virulent flu bug going around and when the passing of the peace portion of the service came, she turned to the woman next to her and raised her hands up in the universal “don’t hurt me, Mr. Bank Robber” mode and exclaimed, “I’m anti!” Immediately, she realized how this would be perceived, but it was too late and the nice lady who wanted to shake MD’s hand was offended and had turned away. MD’s reasons were sound - she didn’t want to gather up the nice lady’s germs and whomever else’s that lady had fondled that morning, but still...her methods were a little, shall we say, anti?

So several weeks ago, ECD and MD were talking about something and MD raised her hands and said, “I’m anti!” To which, ECD laughed hard and I looked on, clueless. They explained it to me and the three of us have been “I’m anti"ing ever since.

I share this boring story with ya’ll because I’ve had to backspace through that phrase several times lately. I figured it was better to just explain it and go with it than self-censor anymore.