Twelve Drummers Drumming

Remind me next year that setting a goal of writing twelve essays over the holidays is an insane idea. Seriously, what was I thinking? In between shopping for gifts and wrapping gifts and decorating the house and cooking and baking and cooking some more and did I mention baking, I decided to write not my usual four times a month, but three times that amount. Yes, I even helped review multiplication tables. And by holidays, I don’t mean observing one or two, but nay, three full holiday celebrations. We kicked it off with Hanukah, moved into Christmas, and moseyed our way on over to New Year’s Eve, the trifecta of overindulgence. In my house, we celebrated them all, so I had even less time than usual.

Let’s review, shall we? I kicked off with a little cute story about singing to my cats, one of those slice of life vignettes, mostly because it was short and I love my kittehs. Next up was a little tidbit from my family’s trip to Disney World and the hotel where we stayed. I kept it together until the end, when I referenced how the creepy clown water slide reminded my husband and me of childbirth. Believe me, I have a ton more to say about Disney. I next ranted about having to buy seventeen teachers’ gifts for the holidays. I moved onto a charming little conversation I had with the Publix cashier over another customer’s bottle of wine and the possibility of her enjoying it. That’s where my normal month of writing would end.

The extras, my bloggy gift to you, got even classier. MJ’s first real stretch mark. My daughter hanging her stuffed animals off the balcony during a play date. Disney’s first black princess. Aborting my sink. Raping my nostril. Staring at some lady’s pubic hair, which in turn made me think about my stepmother’s pubic hair. And finally, farts. Yes, that is what it has come to. When all else fails, I can always write about farts.

The other day, one of my husband’s friends was at our house hanging out and watching television. My husband turned on “The Family Guy,” and his friend, who is a college art history instructor, was surprised that my husband enjoyed such low brow humor. My husband turned it back around on me and said my subject matter for my essays has turned all low brow. What the hell does that even mean?

Well, in an effort to raise my brow, I Googled it. Turns out that the expression low brow refers to the science of phrenology, when people were all into molesting each other’s every skull bump and ridge in an effort to judge and categorize each other. People who had a high brow line were thought to have great intellect, while those with a lower brow line were closer genetically to Neanderthals. I would imagine that Neanderthals laughed at a fart or two in their day.

Which doesn’t make fart jokes low brow. It actually makes them timeless.