Sweet Memories

Let me preface this post by saying that you've probably noticed frequent referrals to my childhood. I know I mention it every now and again. Okay. Okay. I admit I have some strange fascination with how whacked my childhood was, and how amazed I am that I turned out even semi-functional.

Okay. Deep healing breaths.

This morning I woke up with an itchy bottom lip. *Sigh* For those of you not blessed with this lovely affliction, that means I woke up with a fever blister/cold sore. I like to call them itchy hell bumps. Because, well that's what they truly are.

So, I woke up with an itchy hell bump this morning, which immediately sent me careening back to the second grade. My Mom is an R.N., which regardless of what I thought at age seven, does not mean Real Nurse. As the daughter of a caregiver I had been introduced to a world of knowledge that most young children shouldn't know. Like herpes, for instance.

I can still see Mrs. Greene(G), who always pronounced my name incorrectly, standing in front of my desk. Hands pressed firmly on her hips, she argued with me about the ginormous itchy fever blister on my little pink lip.

G: What happened to your lip, Miss Legg-E?

Me: It's herpes.

G: My dear, it is most certainly not herpes.

Me: Yes it is. I got it from my dad.

G: Well, don't tell people that!

Me: It is. It's a simplex.

G: Who told you that?

Me: My Mom. She's a Real Nurse. My name is Heather Legge. Not Legg-E. The E is silent(I had to throw that in there).

She got concerned and pinned a note to my shirt, which I was to deliver to my mother unopened. So, I read it on the bus, deemed it babble and threw it out the window. It was the one and ONLY time I ever littered, and it was all that dumb hillbilly woman's fault!

She never even followed up with a phone call! If she was worried I'd been abused, why didn't she call? Of course, at the time, I couldn't have cared less. I knew I was right. My dad had a fever blister and kissed me when he dropped me off at my moms. Two weeks later I had this red itchy bump on my lip, and my mom was tearing my dad a new one for kissing me and/or letting me drink after him. Then she went on and on about herpes simplex one and two, how contagious it was and that it would never go away.

As far as I can remember, Mrs. Greene never asked me another personal question. She still said my name wrong too, which always burnt me up. If I'd known how to spell her name I'd have started referring to her as Mrs. Green-E.

Wench.

Ah, memories.