Puffinese

2023

Nik: Your mom’s kooky…I like her!”

Me: I’m glad you think so, because that’s me in twenty-five years.

This is the conversation my husband and I had when we were dating, after his first meal with my parents. He had come over to their house with me for dinner around Thanksgiving time. We took turns at the counter piling the exact same food on our plate before sitting down at the picnic bench my mom uses as her kitchen table. When he sat down across from my mom, she leaned over peering at his plate and said, “Nik, honey, what do you have? That looks good,” stuck her fork in his food, and took a bite of whatever she had stabbed.  I don’t think she had used her fork yet, but I doubt it would have mattered. His response? He laughed and said “Here, take whatever you want.” Did I mention she had the exact same food on her plate?

My mom’s name is Puff. No, that’s not her given name, but she was inadvertently rechristened when she was seven years old and dressed up as “Puff the Magic Dragon” for Halloween. Now, she simply introduces herself as Puff. Even my grandparents called her Puff. She also makes up her own words when she doesn’t know how to explain something; we call this language “Puffinese.”

When my family moved to Arizona, my dad promised my mom she could have “any animal she wanted.” (Stay tuned for future stories from the farm.) She started with a handful of rabbits and thus, accumulated an abundance of bunny poop. My mom thought there had to be a way to make money off of it. So, what did she do? She had me and my sisters spray paint the little balls of bunny poop different colors – pink, yellow, blue, and clear shellac. For those of you who haven’t seen bunny poop, they come out in little symmetrical pea-sized balls.

Why, pray tell, did we spray paint them? Well, after we counted twelve colored fecal pellets plus one natural one, we shoved them in a baggie for a “Bunny’s Dozen.” Then we slapped a label on each baggie with a drawing of a bunny and a caption that declared “Easter Bunny Eggs,” and sold them for a dollar a piece. This way parents could show their kids that the Easter Bunny had come during the night and left a little present. I think she sold 300 packages the first day. The back of the label even had a warning that said something along the lines of “Contents: bunny poop. Do not ingest.” It is noteworthy that a prominent political figure in town bought a package, opened it up, and tried to eat one, cracking his tooth in the process.

My mom also had Nubian goats, which incidentally, defecate identical to bunnies, but just a little bigger. What did we do with their excrement? Why, we shellacked them clear and labeled them “Reindeer Kits” … you know, to prove that Santa’s reindeer had visited your house. She also packaged “Snowman Poop” and, more recently, “Pumpkin Poop.” I sh*t you not.

My mom also had a pet turkey, Tommy, who had been hand-raised. Tommy was very friendly and would let my mother do whatever she wanted to him. Well, one year, my mother had a brilliant gift idea for my grandparents’ wedding anniversary. My grandfather had been an expert in sleight of hand and used to conduct magic tricks with my grandmother as his assistant. My mom dressed up Tommy Turkey in a top hat, gave him a cloak, a wand, and a beautiful assistant (a chicken), and took pictures of him conducting various magic tricks. She made his photos into a debut book, Tommy Turkey’s “Abra-ka-dabra” and gave it to my grandparents for their anniversary. She made an entire Tommy Turkey book series for different relatives. I received his “Bundle of Joy” volume when I was pregnant, complete with pictures of Tommy Turkey with a bundle of joy from the stork, with a stuffed bunny, wearing a diaper, a bib, a bonnet, with a pacifier, and in a stroller.

There is evidently a very fine squiggly line between crazy and genius and we like to dance on it. I am totally my mother’s child, which has become more and more apparent since that Thanksgiving night sixteen years ago. The major difference, aside from her being a few inches taller, is that she is an extrovert while I am an introvert, but I suspect I get the majority of my quirkiness from her, for which I am forever grateful. Although come to think of it, I have stopped random strangers on the street to talk to them but only if there appears to be a common topic, such as a Harry Potter shirt…or a dog.

Come to think of it, I’m not quite as…interesting as my mom. But then again, perhaps I just haven’t caught up to her potency of kookiness yet. After all, I am fluent in Puffinese. I feel it is only right to pass along our eccentricity gene to my own offspring, who I lovingly call “Squidget” (among other things).

I often use words like “thingamajiggy,” “doohickey,” and “dealywhop” when I can’t think of the word I mean. (Did I mention that I have a degree in English?) Honestly, I can be more articulate when the occasion calls for it, but it’s more fun to use unconventional words. Besides, my husband has become fluent in Puffinese as well, completely understanding me when I say “the Zippy-thingy” (in boy terms, the “impact tool”) in the garage. I also use sounds to describe certain tools (insert onomatopoeias here).

I love quotes. One of my favorites is from my grandma: “Life’s uncertain; eat dessert first.” I once went to dinner and ordered a garden salad and a dessert; in my defense, I thought the salad would be bigger than a tiny bowl of lettuce, but at least I had room for dessert. I cut slices of uncooked cookie dough from those convenient little cookie dough logs (seriously, I will never get around to actually baking the cookies, just leave the dough in the fridge and eat it slowly over time). I taught my daughter the ABCs and animals in sign language when she was one year old during bath time. Neither she nor I are fluent, but she knows more sign language (and Spanish) than I did when I was her age, so, progress, right?

Since my daughter was small, whenever I got a Diet Coke (my drink of choice), I would let her have the first taste to “check for poison.” She would take a drink, smack her lips together, and said “Ahh,” before telling me it’s not poisonous…or that she wasn’t sure and needed to check again. I use a heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut a heart in her sandwiches when I make her lunch. I also quote my favorite movies and TV shows.

I asked my husband what some of my other eccentricities were. He said “Honey, I think I’ve been around you so long I’ve just been indoctrinated to them.”  After a few minutes, he said he couldn’t think of any except that I “use five forks” when I cook dinner. Honestly, I sometimes use 2 or 3, but that’s usually only when I’m cooking chicken or pork and the meat isn’t cooked yet. I told him I only do it so he doesn’t get salmonella. See how thoughtful I am? Plus, I don’t want to poison him just yet – who would reach the top shelf for me?

Next to my mom, I sometimes feel like I’m downright boring. Luckily, I have learned to accept and even appreciate (most of) my eccentricities, although I often don’t realize them until someone points them out to me, because to me it’s just my “normal.” At any rate, I hope that one day I will have a brilliant idea to make money…such as selling colorful bunny poop. But on a larger scale…the money, not the poop.

Original Post 11/2020