Las Sucias Primas
It was my grandmother’s 87th birthday this weekend, and we had a party for her.
I was sitting next to Mamita as she opened her cards and was a bit surprised to see A dirty birthday card or, in Spanish, Una tarjeta sucia.
It was signed by my cousins Toter and Sissy. Someone teased Mamita that it was her new boyfriend. She protested, ‘It’s too late for me.’
It was an odd card to give your grandmother. This is the same woman who, when my mother was a teenager and asked about the birds and the bees, told her, ‘It is just something that a woman has to do to keep her husband happy. The best thing to do is to lie there and think about something else.’
This was the sixties, so my mother marched down to the Public ‘House of Filth’ Library, and read a book on the subject. She became well-educated on the matters of anatomy and procreation. She discovered that, when a man and a woman love each other very much, or when two animals, human or otherwise, are adults, a woman’s vagina can envelop a man’s penis, accepting his sperm to fertilize an egg and make a baby.
(Though I doubt the book offered a post-feminist conception of the sex act)
What the book failed to mention, apparently, was that there was motion involved. She believed that the man and woman would simply hold each other like this until ejaculation occurred. When she told me about the birds and the bees, she told me that she freaked out the first time she had sex and the boy started moving. I guess she did not want me to be surprised, thoughtful, but an unnecessary warning.
Anyway, when Toter and Sissy saw the card they were more surprised than I was, apparently my other cousin Pappi had signed their names and thrown the tarjeta sucia into the pile. They were falling all over themselves to explain that it was a ‘practical joke.’ Joke is easy to translate into Spanish, but practical joke is a little more idiomatic.
When I could see Mamita was getting ready to start laughing, I hugged her, pulling her face into my shoulder and pretended to comfort her, while my mother mock chastised Sissy in Spanish ‘You dirty, dirty girl!’
I was sitting next to Mamita as she opened her cards and was a bit surprised to see A dirty birthday card or, in Spanish, Una tarjeta sucia.
It was signed by my cousins Toter and Sissy. Someone teased Mamita that it was her new boyfriend. She protested, ‘It’s too late for me.’
It was an odd card to give your grandmother. This is the same woman who, when my mother was a teenager and asked about the birds and the bees, told her, ‘It is just something that a woman has to do to keep her husband happy. The best thing to do is to lie there and think about something else.’
This was the sixties, so my mother marched down to the Public ‘House of Filth’ Library, and read a book on the subject. She became well-educated on the matters of anatomy and procreation. She discovered that, when a man and a woman love each other very much, or when two animals, human or otherwise, are adults, a woman’s vagina can envelop a man’s penis, accepting his sperm to fertilize an egg and make a baby.
(Though I doubt the book offered a post-feminist conception of the sex act)
What the book failed to mention, apparently, was that there was motion involved. She believed that the man and woman would simply hold each other like this until ejaculation occurred. When she told me about the birds and the bees, she told me that she freaked out the first time she had sex and the boy started moving. I guess she did not want me to be surprised, thoughtful, but an unnecessary warning.
Anyway, when Toter and Sissy saw the card they were more surprised than I was, apparently my other cousin Pappi had signed their names and thrown the tarjeta sucia into the pile. They were falling all over themselves to explain that it was a ‘practical joke.’ Joke is easy to translate into Spanish, but practical joke is a little more idiomatic.
When I could see Mamita was getting ready to start laughing, I hugged her, pulling her face into my shoulder and pretended to comfort her, while my mother mock chastised Sissy in Spanish ‘You dirty, dirty girl!’
Posted @ 2:04 PM
1 Comments:
3/22/2005
hot babe writes:
I bet Mamita enjoyed looking at a younger man- I'm actually guessing what the card was as I'm scared to click on the link while at work.
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