That Ain't Gonna Hurt Ya None

I remember hearing the phrase, "that ain't gonna hurt ya none, " more than I heard my own name as a child growing up in rural Texas.

I was talking to someone recently about this and it dawned on me- the truth of that phrase, and how it previewed terrible accidents, food poisoning, and various vermin bites/stings, etc...

I woke up this morning with a request from my Dad to help him steady a ladder. Simple enough. Not simple. I had no idea that my father was going to be climbing to the top of the ladder with a chainsaw rigged up to a pole to cut down a LARGE tree branch that was nestled in between 2 power lines. I kept asking him, "Dad, it's too high for you to reach it." He agreed. So instead of aborting mission, he gets a rope and ties a large hammer to the end of it to "lasso" the tree branch thus pulling it down and tying it off to a post in the ground. The hammer was barely hooked on the branch and all I kept thinking about was how this could easily become a Three Stooges Fail resulting in death by: hammer to the face at full force, tree branch falling on me, tree branch falling on my dad who was on a ladder holding a pole with a chainsaw attached to it which then would all....fall on me.

I said, "Dad if that hammer comes unhooked from that branch....." He interrupted me with, "Melodee, this ain't gonna hurt you none." Fine. You win.... until you don't win. Until you lose...hard.

When I was around 8 years old and out in the middle of the woods with my Dad I saw a beautiful snake. I knew it was venomous and he told me to "move the snake out' tha way" so he wouldn't roll over it with his giant wheelbarrow. I said, "Um... I think that snake is one of the bad snakes." His reply... "that ain't gonna hurt you none." I moved the snake. I was bitten by that very snake. It was venomous.

My uncle, Dad, and brother told me to eat a fist full of these wild berries that grew on out in the fields of South Texas... He called them "Dewberries." I was a fat kid with a pension for sweets so I ate the hell out of those berries. Within seconds my mouth was numb, I couldn't feel my tongue, and my eyes started to water. I ran back to the farm house and couldn't explain myself properly and I was met with laughter and pointing. I cried and they said, "Don't worry, that ain't gonna hurt you none."

My family has a problem with understanding expiration dates on food items. I have been a fridge nazi since I was a little kid because I throw things away with expired dates clearly printed on the side of the package. My family flippantly ignore expiration dates and I think I've even heard a few family members say "they don't believe in them." Well... they exist? Right? Yeah, they exist. I realized later in life when my family says, "I don't believe in..." what that really means is, "I am choosing to ignore that detail."

Very recently I was plagued with wicked food poisoning/stomach virus pot luck surprise. I realized that the culprit was my Mom's own version of consolidation. She consolidates expired things with non-expired things as a sort of trash alchemy. I busted her doing this a few days ago with some really really really old cheese. She was trying to mix a bag of new fresh shredded cheese with old rotten putrid cheese. I confronted her about this and she said, "Well, Meluh'dee that ain't gonna hurt you none, you just bein' silly." No. No. No I'm not. I'm not being silly when I make a full sprint at 3:30am into the bathroom and have my head stuck in a toilet for 30 minutes while I moan and audibly cry, "Why?! Oh God.... (puking noises) Oh why...Oh God..."

While I do believe that people now are contributing to "global laming," by not disciplining their kids, forcing their dogs to be vegans and feeding their newborn babies pre-chewed food (*Alicia Silverstone).... There has to be a middle ground between everyone being afraid of everything to everyone saying there is nothing to be afraid of. I don't think one kid in the USA under 10 years of age would've made it a week growing up in the 1970's and 80's. Example: The slide at my elementary school was at least 25 feet high, made of solid stainless steel and if you fell off of it you would hit hard ass gravel. If you used the slide in the summer months wearing shorts (we did) you would get 2nd degree burns on the back of your thighs and sometimes on your arms if you tried to "slow yourself down." Nothing about this was okay. We played with cinderblocks, threw rocks at hornets nests, pushed each other off the tree house, dared each other to belly crawl through barbed wire fence. For most of my childhood I was covered in scabs from turfing it off my BMX bike because I decided it was a good idea to launch off of something really sketchy. If we had any fear as young Texans about doing any of the dangerous activity surrounding daily life, we were told, "that ain't gonna hurt you none." I can very clearly remember being covered in rocks and blood with a nail sticking out of my foot and hearing that phrase with the tag line, "you is alright Booger, put some Camphophenique on it." Most of the times I was told to rub some type of over the counter shit on my wounds is when I most certainly needed medical attention.

All the years of therapy in my 20's and hearing shrinks say, "Your biggest issue you need to deal with is your inability to ask for help when you really need it." I get why that was hard for me to wrap my brain around after realizing that most of the time I was told "that ain't gonna hurt you none... You is alright."

You know what though? I was alright. And though I don't agree with consolidation of rotten food-trash alchemy, playing with venomous snakes, or running barefoot through a field with rusty nails.... I do agree with not living in fear of germs, playground equipment, or occasionally reaping the reward of living dangerously.

It's April Fools day and I'm patiently awaiting a nice slice of "dewberry pie."

Afterall... it ain't gonna hurt me none.