If You Don't Stand For Something You'll Fall For Anything

For longer than I can remember there has been one thing I have believed with all my heart. It seems so fundamentally simple that I am truly shocked not everyone feels the same way on this one matter.

I, with every fiber of my being, believe if you don't know what something is you do not pick it up.

If you have the need for someone to help you identify what this something is you should ask the person to come to the unidentified object - not pick up the object and bring it to the person on the other end of the house.

Example one: When my sister and I were younger, say I was 9 and my sister was 5, her cat was pregnant. No one knew because she was black and black is a very slimming color. Anyway, the moment of the blessed event came and I was doing something somewhere when my little sister came to me.

In a shaky voice she put her hand up to me and said, "What is this?"

Being the logical person I am and half awake/half asleep and seeing something not readily identifiable to my bleary eyes I shout, "Oh my God, drop it!"

Because you don't pick up things if you don't know what they are.

My eyes focused and I realized that my sister had panicked when I shouted at her and dropped the kitten. The kitten survived and went on to become a lawyer and raise a lovely family of kittens that never picked up things they couldn't identify.

Example two: This next example is gross and thoroughly illustrates that I have a long way to go on my road to domestic goddess status, but get over it - it was an oversight and it hasn't happened again.

My cat throws up. This one time I was busy and didn't clean it up right away. So, I did what any right-minded person would do and covered it with a bowl so I didn't step in it and no one else mucked around in it or something.

Then we left for Tennessee.

Then we came home 3 or 4 days later and my dear, sweet husband was straightening up.

He comes to me and put his hand up to me and said, "What is this?"

"Oh my God, put that down!" I immediately shouted as everything came back to me and my amnesia was cured.

"What? Why? What is it?"

"It's cat vomit," I explained as he freaked out.

Yes, I know. Gross. But it was one time. And more importantly, he shouldn't have picked it up if he didn't know what it was, which would have kept me from having to include it in this post.

And so on and so forth as it were.

The thing is that my belief not only saves you from grossness but it saves you from disaster too. Trojan horse anyone?