DON’T SPIT!!!

river04You guys can we talk? And I mean guys. Those of the male gender. Gals if you are grossed out by spit, quit reading. Now.

I am not exactly grossed out by spit. As long as it doesn’t land on me or any of my belongings. I just don’t quite get it. I’ve been watching and listening to people spit for one heck of a long time now. Like ever since I was born and I’ll betcha a double nickel you can’t guess when that was. Anyway. Is spitting somehow connected to the Y chromosome or is it some kind of rite of passage that gets passed down from male to male throughout the generations?

The Old Coot, that is my old coot, used to spit. Regularly. If he was in the house, he would at least spit in the toilet if my memory is accurate. Outdoors? Any place that was convenient. Was it related to his occasional cigar habit? I don’t know. I remember when The Engineer was maybe about three and the two of them would stand there (where? somewhere, anywhere) and they would SPIT! To be honest, I don’t remember whether The Engineer spat in his adulthood or not. But he sure did emulate his dad when he was a little kid.

And then there was the time when The Old Coot had morphed into Grandroobly and he and his teensy tinesy little granddaughter Lizard Breath took a walk. She was riding her tricycle down the Landfill sidewalk and he was walking alongside. And. Haaaccccchhhhh-ppptuuuii. Yes. Grandroobly apparently felt the urge to spit. “DON’T SPIT!” said the toddler, emphatically but matter-of-factly. Ooops. Caught in the act! Alas. Grandroobly still felt the urge to spit. What to do? He backed up about 25 feet behind the tricycle and very discretely (or so he thought) spat again. Without missing a beat, the toddler said again, “DON’T SPIT!”

I do not get this spitting thing. I do not EVER feel the need to spit. Well, maybe that’s not totally true. If a bug or some other unsavory type of thing gets into my mouth I will spit to high heaven to get it out. If I take a drink of something and something happens that absolutely cracks me up, get out of the way. Yes, I do clean my laptop screen occasionally. But I can’t remember EVER merely thinking, “hmm, I need to spit.” Why did I not get this little scrap of DNA? Why was this little ritual not passed along to me?

Guys, whuddup with this? Gals (if you’ve gotten this far), do you spit? Do you “get” spitting? Whaddya think?

6 Responses to “DON’T SPIT!!!”

  1. gg Says:

    You don’t expect me to swallow that crap, do you?

  2. kayak woman Says:

    Don’t mind him. 😉

  3. Margaret Says:

    Once in a while, I spit while running–don’t know why I need to. But no, I’m not a spitter. Teenage boys sure are though!!

  4. mouse Says:

    I’m not a “gal”. I do spit. What annoys me is when Daddy is smoking a cigar and he spits every two seconds. I usually spit when something gets in my mouth (e.g. bug spray), but sometimes if my mouth is dry or something I end up spitting.

    P.S. Did you take the picture or me ironing, or what it the Sneak?

  5. Kathy Farnell Says:

    The worst was Dougs Grandpa. He was in a wheelchair and he chewed tobacco. He carried a little pan with him and he would spit in it. He kept it nearby most of the time but sometimes he would get wheeled away from it and someone would have to get it for him. It was sooooooo GROSS. I tried to keep away from that pan because just looking at it made me ill. Spitting, in my opinion, is one of the worst habits that a human being can have.

  6. Uncly Uncle Says:

    “Comrads! Don’t spit on the floor.”
    – Ayn Rand, We the Living.