recalling weird memories about mom

You know how when you are a kid, it seems like your life's mission is to just figure stuff out? Like bad words: you want to learn and collect them all! Each bad word you learn is like a precious gem to add to your collection. And then sometimes you would overhear your parents talking in a low voice about adult things, using words you've never heard before, and they're angry about it, and you just have to know the whole story. Then you ask mom and she says something like "Nevermind. NOTHING. STOP IT. STOP ASKING ME." Or one of the best lines, because it meant it probably had to do with sex, was: "I'll tell you when you're older." To which I would say, "How old?! Why are you making me wait?! I'm old enough! You never tell me anything!!!" I remember trying to make a mental note of each time she used that line, so I could pull it out at a later date and demand an explanation. But as I got older I learned this would not be necessary. I know (and knew) more about most of those unsavory life things then my mom ever will.

I saw something today that reminded me of a moral outburst from my mom. Now I'm sitting here trying to remember all the weird prudish things she said...and there were a lot! And they're all so weird! It's totally my mom's fault that I always want to be so incredibly open to the point of oversharing about sex and that I'm really into reading about and discussing all aspects of sex, because she was not in the least. My future kids are in for a treat!

• First, I remembered this one time, when I was around 9 years old, we were at the mall and my mom said to her friend, "I can't believe they do that. That is disgusting!" Annoying curious child me was like, "What are you talking about?" and she goes, "Back there. The mannequins have nipples. They don't need to do that. They don't need to put nipples on mannequins." And she said it in this totally disgusted, morally outraged voice. They were these all black busts at Victoria's Secret! Just like Barbie dolls with peas on their breasts. Dear god.
• In the car one day, she suddenly said (in the same low, morally outraged voice), "Change the channel. This is dirty. She is so disgusting." "Why?" I asked. "She is just bad and dirty. I won't support her music." It was a Madonna song!
• She was talking to my babysitter about herself being naive as a teenager. She said, "At my first job, these guys were showing pictures of our co-worker George. And I was like, 'I wanna see them!' And I looked at them [in lowered hushed voice] and he was in [mouthed, not even spoken] DRAG. I had no idea what that even was!" I was standing there at full attention, straining my ears. "What? What were the pictures? I don't get it!" I made a mental note to figure out what the other meaning of "drag" was.
• She was really angry because this one family at our church were vocal democrats, and they wore Clinton/Gore buttons to church. "I can't believe she gives out communion with that on!" "Why?" I asked. "Clinton supports abortion. It's wrong. I can't believe they have the nerve to wear that to church." (again in low, outraged, disgusted voice)

I can't remember anymore right now, but hopefully I will recall some more good ones to add to this list later. So glad I can look back at this with a sense of humor as an adult now and not get really angry. She would use the ridiculous morally outraged voice on me all the time in high school and hearing it made me want to jump out of my skin!!