Tequila Mockingbird and Bleaching the Evidence

So the other day I was having a conversation with my mother-in-law in which I discussed my knee-jerk reaction to bleach. As you do.

Me: “Every time I smell bleach, I think of death.”
MIL: silence.
Me: “Like, I just assume there’s been blood there and someone needed to bleach the crime scene. Even in the elevator of our building. I smell it and I think ‘Did someone die?’”
MIL: “So…….you don’t think, maybe, that it’s just really clean? I think “clean” when I smell bleach.”
Me: “I think death.”
MIL, giving me the side-eye: “That’s…….”
Me: “I know, this is one of those things that I think is a thing everyone thinks. And then I say it out loud and realize that it’s definitely not a thing.”
MIL: “It’s definitely not a thing. That’s a Becky thing.”
Me: “This is why CB tells me not to say these things out loud to other people. Because of that look you’re giving me.”
MIL: “Yeah, might be best not to share this one.”

So obviously I’ll blog about it.

But it got me to thinking about other things throughout my life that are less death-oriented, yet still things that I thought were things that are not things.

Such as:

The book “To Kill a Mockingbird” I thought was “Tequila Mockingbird” for several years in school. And, while the original is a classic that I love, I’d go ahead and read me some “Tequila Mockingbird,” too.

I thought the phrase “might as well” was “mind as well” and wrote it that way late into my twenties. Until Courtney was like “you realize that you’re writing/saying it wrong, right?” To which I did not realize that and then pretended like I didn’t know what she was talking about.

I thought the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man was the State Puff Marshmallow Man. Like, a state mascot for delicious sugary treats. Which I’d totally get on board with, by the way.

When someone says “Easy-peezy” I immediately say “George and Wheezy.” That’s not so much a thing that I thought was a thing, but more a thing that should be a thing because it always makes CB laugh. Just like when someone says it’s chilly outside and I say “It’s chilly con queso.” Which I know makes no sense, but it also makes CB laugh, so I continue to do it.

And then this one, which came up recently. When I go to get, say, a cookie, and there is only one other cookie left, I feel bad for the other cookie and say “it’s ok, I’ll be back.” Not in a threatening way or anything, more in a comforting, "don't worry, you're not alone" kind of way.

Or if there are, say, a bunch of cookies, but one cookie is on the other side of the tin, far away from the other cookies, I’ll move it to be near its friends.

WHICH I made the mistake of telling CB the other day when I was re-heating pizza.

Me: “I feel bad when I leave one piece of pizza alone in the box. But I just can’t eat all of it.”
CB: “You feel bad?”
Me: “Yeah….I always have to apologize to the food I leave behind. Don't you?”
CB: “Apologize to my food? No.”
Me: “Yeah, me either.”

Silence.

Me: “But you don’t feel bad if you leave, like, one apple behind?”
CB: “We’re not troops in a war, it’s an apple. It doesn’t have feelings.”
Me: “How do you know?”
CB: “Ok, so you’re telling me that, if this apple has feelings, that it’d rather you bite it and eat it and digest it rather than leave it alone in the refrigerator?”
Me: “Well then at least it’d be with the other food in my stomach.”
CB: “There’s something seriously wrong with you.”
Me: “This is not news. You said it’s one of the reasons you married me - it’ll never be boring!”
CB: “Yes, never boring, always crazy.”

Happy Thursday, everyone!