BITE ME

So my sister and I talked about collectively putting together a book of short stories detailing the funny incidents of our childhood and so on. Undoubtedly most of these incidents would take place at the kitchen table, a result of the Dub family dinner conversation. Growing up with two older brothers really takes the conversation to a whole new level, mostly in inappropriate ways. Here is one of the more notable evenings from my memory:

I’ll say about 7th grade I went through a “bite me” phase. Not like the mike Tyson kind, but the snappy response kind. To this day, I’m not even sure if “bite me” has some other urban dictionary meaning, besides to literally bite someone, but I thought it was the cool thing to do, and so it became my 13 year old self’s signature phrase. I used it A LOT. Again, when you have two older brothers, quick snappy remarks are never ending, especially when they are making fun of you endlessly. Well needless to say, as cool as I thought I was being, all snippety, my mother was not a fan. She would continually glare whenever I said the phrase, and remind me again and again to please not respond with “bite me.” but sounding cool was obviously way more important to me. It was not until this particular evening, that I vowed to never use the phrase again:

It was a typical family dinner, all six of us sitting around the table eating something delicious I’m sure. Let’s pretend it was meatloaf….yummm. Anyway the conversation began innocently enough, but slowly it morphed into the more inappropriate topics we all love. And then of course it turned into, “Let’s make fun of Lauren” night. Well one thing led to another and of course I replied, “BITE ME!” My mom’s reaction was the expected, she gave me her disapproving look, and told me to please not use that phrase. Being thirteen, and knowing EVERYTHING, I felt it was necessary to argue. “What is so wrong with it,” I asked. But before my mom could answer my question my dad jumped in and answered with, “Well how would you feel if I said Blow Me all the time?” At that point I am sure the look on my face was priceless. I imagine my eyes bugged out, and I struggled to keep my milk in my mouth and not to choke. Needless to say, I never used bite me again in the following years, and to this day, it rarely slips out, unless really necessary, the horror of reliving that night is just not worth it.

Maybe my parents should write a how to parenting guide, because clearly the best way to get children to stop saying things you don’t approve of, is to scar them with something equally disturbing coming out of your mouth. Who knew?