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If you’ve ever done CPR, you know how horrifying it is. You have to gather your wits and remember the steps. You have to tilt the head back, clear the windpipe, pinch the nose, and breath into the mouth and pray to whatever God might be listening that you got those in the right order. When the head will fit in the cup of your hand, and the nose is smaller than the pad of your thumb, you start praying you aren’t breaking anything.

But, getting the steps right isn’t a guarantee that mouth-to-mouth resuscitation will work, and chest compressions rarely deliver without causing further damage.

I am visiting over on Bonbon Break today, sharing a rather personal story.

There are things that happen in seconds, which change your life forever. They change who you are. They change how you walk. They change your thought process. Some of those things are good–like falling in love, or having a baby. Some of those things are horrible.

For me, the worst feeling in the world is the one of just needing back three minutes. If I could just have three minutes back, I could fix everything. But time is relentless, and once the second hand has jumped forward, there is nothing on earth that can turn it back.

It’s easy to judge. It’s easy to point fingers. It’s hard to look at ourselves and admit that we are just so afraid of making the same mistake, and paying the same price that we can’t even take tragedy at face value.

That aside, here are some tips from the CDC for staying safe around water.

Tips to help you stay safe in the water

• Supervise When in or Around Water. Designate a responsible adult to watch young children while in the bath and all children swimming or playing in or around water. Supervisors of preschool children should provide “touch supervision”, be close enough to reach the child at all times. Because drowning occurs quickly and quietly, adults should not be involved in any other distracting activity (such as reading, playing cards, talking on the phone, or mowing the lawn) while supervising children, even if lifeguards are present.
• Use the Buddy System. Always swim with a buddy. Select swimming sites that have lifeguards when possible.
• Seizure Disorder Safety. If you or a family member has a seizure disorder, provide one-on-one supervision around water, including swimming pools. Consider taking showers rather than using a bath tub for bathing. Wear life jackets when boating.
• Learn to Swim. Formal swimming lessons can protect young children from drowning. However, even when children have had formal swimming lessons, constant, careful supervision when children are in the water, and barriers, such as pool fencing to prevent unsupervised access, are still important.
• Learn Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR). In the time it takes for paramedics to arrive, your CPR skills could save someone’s life.
• Air-Filled or Foam Toys are not safety devices. Don’t use air-filled or foam toys, such as “water wings”, “noodles”, or inner-tubes, instead of life jackets. These toys are not life jackets and are not designed to keep swimmers safe.
• Avoid Alcohol. Avoid drinking alcohol before or during swimming, boating, or water skiing. Do not drink alcohol while supervising children.
• Don’t let swimmers hyperventilate before swimming underwater or try to hold their breath for long periods of time. This can cause them to pass out (sometimes called “hypoxic blackout” or “shallow water blackout”) and drown.
• Know how to prevent recreational water illnesses. For more information about illnesses from recreational water, see the More Information section below.
• Know the local weather conditions and forecast before swimming or boating. Strong winds and thunderstorms with lightning strikes are dangerous.

If you have a swimming pool at home:

• Install Four-Sided Fencing. Install a four-sided pool fence that completely separates the pool area from the house and yard. The fence should be at least 4 feet high. Use self-closing and self-latching gates that open outward with latches that are out of reach of children. Also, consider additional barriers such as automatic door locks and alarms to prevent access or alert you if someone enters the pool area.
• Clear the Pool and Deck of Toys. Remove floats, balls and other toys from the pool and surrounding area immediately after use so children are not tempted to enter the pool area unsupervised.

If you are in and around natural water settings:

• Use U.S. Coast Guard approved life jackets. This is important regardless of the distance to be traveled, the size of the boat, or the swimming ability of boaters; life jackets can reduce risk for weaker swimmers too.
• Know the meaning of and obey warnings represented by colored beach flags. These may vary from one beach to another.
• Watch for dangerous waves and signs of rip currents. Some examples are water that is discolored and choppy, foamy, or filled with debris and moving in a channel away from shore.
• If you are caught in a rip current, swim parallel to shore. Once free of the current, swim diagonally toward shore.

 

I recognize that if you are inclined to believe Caitlyn Jenner wants to rape your daughter in the bathroom, and Josh Duggar is a great catch, you probably aren’t reading my blog. I recognize that if [you have stumbled across this page and] you are inclined to believe that you can only trust cisgender heterosexuals, nothing I write will change your mind. I know I am preaching to the choir. But what a choir it is!

And since you all love to sing, I’d like us to learn a song together. If we are all singing the same song, maybe someone else will pick up the tune and start singing along. We need it to be an earworm, though, so let’s do it to the tune of The Lion Sleeps Tonight

For the A-weema-wehs, we’re going to sing, “You’ll be okay”

Altos, take the melody for once. You deserve it.

We’ll let Teddy the Tenor sing the “oooooh” parts.

(You’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay)

(You’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay)

In the toilet, the Target toilet
someone needs to pee
In the toilet, the Target toilet
someone needs to pee

(You’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay)

(You’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay)

82% of all rapes reported
are perpetrated by someone the victim knows
82% of all of rapes reported
are perpetrated by someone the victim knows

Oooooh, ooooh, ooooh, ooooh, oooh, you’re going to be okay

Oooooh, ooooh, ooooh, ooooh, oooh, you’re going to be okay

(You’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay)

(You’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay)

Hush my darling don’t fear my darling
The person in Target just wants to pee
Hush my darling don’t fear my darling
The person in Target just wants to pee

(You’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay)

(You’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay)

Oooooh, ooooh, ooooh, ooooh, oooh, you’re going to be okay

Oooooh, ooooh, ooooh, ooooh, oooh, you’re going to be okay

What if it was your child, show some compassion
That person just needs to pee
What if it was your child, show some compassion
That person just needs to pee

(You’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay)

(You’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay)

If there’s a creeper, creeping in the bathroom
then by all means, call the police
But if someone’s just trying to use the toilet
for pete’s sake give them some peace

(You’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay)

(You’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay)

Oooooh, ooooh, ooooh, ooooh, oooh, you’re going to be okay

Oooooh, ooooh, ooooh, ooooh, oooh, you’re going to be okay

For statistics about rape, I recommend visiting RAINN.org.

If you are really, and truly afraid of being raped by a transperson in a bathroom, I recommend making friends with a transperson over coffee at your favorite café. If you are really afraid, I am so sorry–not in a condescending way. I am sorry because you are missing out on some really great people, and if you are afraid of transpeople, it is likely you are afraid of a lot of other things–maybe just because they are different, and you don’t understand them.

Let me say this one other way: I do not like clowns. At all. I will cross the street to avoid a clown. I will also hold my bladder to avoid using the restroom if I know a clown is in there, and I would NOT send my child into the bathroom with a clown–though he does not share my coulrophobia. As awful as I think clowns are, and as much as I CANNOT FATHOM why anyone would want to dress that way, I don’t think there should be a law banning clowns from using the toilet, even though there is actual precedence of clowns killing people for fun.

We don’t need to be afraid of transpeople, or gay people, or clown people*. We need to be wary of rapists, most of whom are people we already know.

If the body has a bladder, let it pee.

Ooh…

When I find myself outside a bathroom, worried who’ll be there with me
I think, “If the body has a bladder, let it pee.”
I don’t have to fear a stranger, unless the stranger’s in the stall with me
If the body has a bladder, let it pee.
Let it pee, let it pee, let it pee, let it pee
If the body has a bladder, let it pee.

* I apologize to all the clown-people out there. I promise never to discriminate against you. I also promise that if you come to close to me, I will cry, and not just because I think that is an ungodly use of cosmetics.

I am a white person. You may have noticed that from the pictures. I am a white person from the Deep South, born in 1970, and raised mostly in military towns by people who were pretty decent human beings.

What that means is that I was in a military-brat bubble, so I missed a lot of what was happening in civilian neighborhoods around the country in the 70s. I lived in mixed populations, and grew up around people who were from all over the world, and my parents never talked to me in terms of Us and Them, so I can’t say that I was ever truly aware of just how deeply segregated life had been only 10 years before I was born. But your parents aren’t the only people who teach you the terms of Us and Them.

That said, I grew up with a learned pride in my Southern heritage. I made heroes of Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson. I had a watch that played Dixie–and I played it til the battery ran out. In my upbringing, and in my education I learned that the Civil War was something that happened to Us. That We were attacked for our beliefs, and made to fight to defend our rights, and that–yes–among these beliefs and rights there was the small thing of slavery, but there were many other, bigger issues, and The North mainly used that as propaganda to fuel a hatred of Us. I thought Gone with the Wind was historically accurate, Elvis was an original act, and couldn’t understand why some people got so upset about Brer Rabbit because that was just how my people talked.

We didn’t talk about the Civil Rights movement in my family. If my parents did, it filtered down to me through the veil of Reconstruction also having been something done to Us. Our South still suffered because of what was done to Us, and We weren’t even the bad guys who owned slaves.

I grew up with a nebulous idea of segregation, exhaustion and fear of people like MLK, Malcolm X, and Jesse Jackson, and a complete blindness as to how I was inferring and internalizing the terms of Us and Them.

Previously, I have written about how I didn’t even know what a lynching really was until I was in my 30s, and decided to do a little light reading about the Freedom Riders. So, try to picture me in the middle seat of a row on an airplane, reading a passage about what constituted a lynching, and some of the atrocities inflicted on men, women, and children just for looking at one of Us the wrong way. Because, y’all know I’m a crier. And all I could think while reading was, “That could have been my son. What if someone had done that to my son?”

I had to put the book down, and it took me about a year to finish it. I couldn’t bear it. I started reading other things, though, and talking to other people. And I started seeking out works by black writers. I revisited the Maya Angelou work I had disliked so much in high school and college, and realized that a lot of my dislike was in recognizing that it hadn’t been written for Us/Me. I was so used to being the intended audience, that I couldn’t appreciate, or enjoy a book that was written to the entertainment of a nice, middle class, white girl.

I started realizing I did live in a world of Us and Them.

I started listening to rap music, and old soul, trying to understand where that art came from, and hear the voices of the communities represented instead of being afraid, or off put. I pulled out my Billie Holiday and started trying to hear her as a message, not just as a tune. I made myself listen to the lyrics of Strange Fruit, and hear it, and internalize it.

If something made me want to respond with, “Not all white people!” or, “Not all Southerners!” I tried to dig down to the root of it, and be part of what might help the conversation, not shut it down because it made me uncomfortable–or just shut up and listen. Sometimes, you just need to shut up and listen.

I started asking questions–some of them were pretty stupid, and probably insulting, but when people were insulted, I tried to find out why. I didn’t want to make the same mistake twice, and I wanted to be better.

I wanted to be better for every mother whose child swung on the wrong end of a rope in Alabama.

I wanted to be better for every mother whose child was taken away from her, and sold to someone else.

I wanted to be better for every mother who had to look into her child’s face and know the best that child could hope for was just a different kind of hellish hard.

Because the only way to make sure it never happens again, is to make a change in yourself, and try to raise that change in your children.

I’m digressing–I do that when I think about my kid.

This morning, a DJ (on the sports radio station, obvs) was talking about Chet Atkins, and his particular style of picking. He mentioned that Atkins had an arrangement where he played Yankee Doodle and Dixie at the same time. He said, “He played one song for the North, and one for the South at the same time.”

So, I have a very complicated relationship with Dixie–with my heritage as a whole. I mean, I love that song, but I am aware that people died to the tune of it. A too-light comparison is my complicated relationship with The Cosby Show. I LOVE the Cosby show. I wanted Cliff Huxtable to be my dad. But now I am aware that women were being raped under the protection of Dr. Huxtable’s good name.

My first thought was, “Oh! I love Dixie! My second thought was, “Um…that’s not really a song ‘for the South’. That’s really ‘a song for white people in the South.'” My next thought was, “Yankee Doodle is for white people, too.” And then I thought, “So is the whole Civil War.”

That hit me really hard. It hit me that all this time, when I’ve sat in a classroom, or read a book, or watched a movie and the topic was the Civil War, when we said The South, we meant White People in The South. When we said The North, we meant White People in The North. People of color only entered into the conversation as something to be fought over, denied, or granted rights, or as an interesting side-note to history because they’d been allowed to do something reserved for white people.

I was equal parts horrified, and hopeful. Horrified because that is horrifying! Hopeful because if I can figure it out, other people can, and if we work together, we can change the conversation.

As a woman, I know a lot about what it is like to live in a world where I have to ask someone else to give me things that are already mine. I have to demand, and defend the right to make choices about my own body. I have to demand, and defend my right to equal pay. I have to demand, and defend my right to even feed my child in public because a male dominated, sexually fixated culture has appropriated my breasts.

I know it doesn’t feel good. I know I wouldn’t want it for my child.

Right now, the best I can do is start a conversation. It may be the only thing I can ever do. But here you go. Help me think about this.

And while I’m thinking, I’ll tell you how I work around my complicated relationships with Dixie and Cosby.

Both have brought me great joy, and I can appreciate that joy. I can be thankful and grateful for the goodness, and I can remember how much I enjoyed both, and it’s okay if I get excited and happy at the first thought of either. I can still love the good of The South–which includes everyone. I can still love Lisa Bonet and still call my kid “Bud”. But as much as it breaks my heart to not watch Cosby anymore, I don’t support rapists. And as much as I love Dixie, and as pretty as I think that flag is, I can’t celebrate under the banners where other mothers saw their children tortured, maimed, and killed for the color of their skin.

I don’t want to be an Us unless it means All Of Us.

 

 

 

 

Like many other Americans, I live in a house with a person of the opposite sex. I also grew up in a house with people of the opposite sex, and visited houses where people of the opposite sex lived. To this day, if I go to visit a friend, there is a good chance that someone of the opposite sex also lives in the house with my friend.

I don’t want to shock, or upset you, but in every one of those situations, I have used a unisex toilet.

Please don’t judge me. I have a unisex toilet in my own house.

Actually, I have two. This does sometimes pose a problem in the middle of the night when I don’t turn on the light, and a member of the opposite sex has either left the lid up (and I fall into the toilet when I sit down), or has sprinkled the seat (and I sit down in someone else’s cold urine), but is otherwise manageable.

I am not afraid of unisex toilets, so I started to wonder why other people are. I have come up with this list:

1. You are afraid someone else is going to try to peep your pee pee.
2. You are afraid you might try to peep someone else’s pee pee.

I am a fixer, so I tried to solve these problems.

1. Do not use a public restroom, period.
2. Seek medical treatment.

If you are really afraid someone is going to try to watch you use the toilet, please know that there are easier ways than climbing over, or under a stall. There are tiny, wireless spy cameras that can be hidden ANYWHERE. I do mean anywhere. I know this because I used to work for a place that used tiny, wireless spy cameras, and hid them EVERYWHERE. I do mean everywhere.

Those tiny cameras give you a much better visual, offer you some variety, and you don’t have to hang out in the actual restroom to get your jollies. You just set up your equipment, then let nature take its course over, and over again. If one of these cameras is set up in a toilet, you probably aren’t going to know about it until someone tells you that her husband came across your amateur video when he was researching porn for his Sunday School class about the evils of such things.

If a creeper is hanging out in the toilet, you’re going to know it, and you should leave immediately, and notify authorities. Just make sure you aren’t calling the police on the toddler who has mashed her face against the hole left by the ripped out toilet paper holder, and is eyeballing your bits to compare against her mother’s. Or the one who has crawled under the stalls and is saying hello to everyone as she goes. Really, children are the worst violators of bathroom privacy.

If you are really and truly worried about what is in a public restroom, other than a vile amount of bacteria, please don’t use one. Please don’t keep other people from being able to use a toilet because you are afraid you might catch a glimpse of genitals that half the population has, and anyone can see on any given episode of Girls, or Game of Thrones.

Bodies are just bodies, people, and a different body making a poop three feet away from you isn’t going to make demons fly up your butt, no matter what my old pastor’s wife said about how people get possessed*.

We all poop. There are books about it, if you don’t believe me. Let’s get over this weird thought that girls go here, and boys go there, and never should they ever share the same seats because…like I said, just about every home in America has a unisex toilet, so we’ve already crossed the streams.

 

*To be fair, she said people became possessed when demons from the Middle East flew into their eyeballs. She said nothing about butts. My money is on her believing that demons will enema themselves into you, though.

 

 

 

(In which I address the daughter I never had, with the advice I always wanted to give.)

 

Dear Imaginary Daughter,

I want to talk to you about schmucks. See, you’ve grown up surrounded by good men, who respect women as equals. Your father is good man. Your uncle is a good man. Your brother is growing up to be a good man. Your extended family is full of good men. So, you might be surprised one day when you sit down next to a man at the company baseball game, and as you bite into your hot dog, he leans over to leer, “Can you fit that whole thing in your mouth? I’ll bet you can.”

 You might be surprised because your first thought will be, “What did he just say?” Followed rapidly by, “What did that mean? Surely he’s not making a beej reference at a company event. Is he? Surely not.”

 When he follows it up with a growly, “I’d like to see what else you can fit in there,” you might feel the bottom drop out of your stomach because—well, that leaves little room for doubt.

 You’ll be amazed at how many scenarios your brain can process in the next three seconds, and you might slink home later, feeling gross and upset with yourself for having just laughed in response, but most of those scenarios probably ended with you looking like a fool, so what were you supposed to do?

 I’m here to help you answer that question.

 First, let me assure you that if your gut tells you someone is being inappropriate with you, they probably are. If you need to explain away the behavior in order to make it into a normal interaction, it isn’t a normal interaction. If I’m around, all you need to do is show me your eyebrows, and I will come deliver some second wave feminism*, but if I’m not around, I’d like you to do the following: Stop, drop, and roll.

 Yes. I want you to follow fire safety rules. Stop. Drop. Roll.

 Stop whatever it is you are doing—put down whatever you are holding. Get still, and plant your feet. A schmuck is trying to throw you off balance mentally. Get hold of your balance physically before you address him.

 Drop your hands to your side, or your hips.

 Roll those beautiful eyes, then narrow them, fix them on the schmuck, raise your voice and say, “I don’t understand what you mean by that. Explain what you mean.” Don’t ask it as a question. Say it. Loudly.

 Why do I want you to do that? Because your body language will telegraph that you are dead serious and the change in your posture will catch the attention of the people around you—it will also throw the schmuck off guard. Your facial expression will telegraph that you are above the conversation, but not above calling him out and setting him straight, and the volume of your words will force him to back off, or risk exposure.

 Most schmucks are bullies. They won’t risk anyone standing up to them. They’ll try to put you in a position where you feel like you need to back away quickly to avoid a scene, and they’ll chase you into a corner if they can. When you draw the line immediately, most of them will stop. But then the conversation can go a few ways, and I want you to be prepared for that.

 These are some things schmucks like to say, and one-liners you should memorize and have at the ready:

 

Schmuck Line (SL): I’m just kidding. Jeez. Can’t you take a joke?

Your Line (YL): I don’t know. Say something funny.

 

SL: What’s wrong with you?! Ugh! Dirty mind.

YL: I don’t understand. Please explain yourself.

 

SL: It’s a compliment. Can’t you take a compliment?

YL: I don’t see how that is a compliment. Please explain.

 

SL: You’re an ugly bitch anyway.

YL: Clearly.

 

SL: I thought you were cool.

YL: You thought wrong.

 

SL: What’s wrong with you?

YL: Apparently, the company I keep.

 

SL: Well, the way you are dressed/look/acting/drinking, I thought you were up for it/asking for it/looking for it.

YL: You thought wrong.

 

Quite honestly, the only thing you really ever need to say is, “I don’t understand. Please explain.” That will shut down most schmucks easily. But, there are very aggressive schmucks in the world. There are men who really, honestly, down to the marrow hate women. If you run into one of those, I want you to remember one thing, and one thing only: You are always free to leave.

 I don’t care if it is a teacher, a preacher, a family member, a date, a boss, a coworker, a crossing guard, or the President of the United States. If a man (or woman) is treating you with disrespect, you are free to leave.

 Your father and I will always have your back, and we will help you with any fallout you might face.

 And that’s a big thing, Imaginary Daughter. Because there might be fallout. Don’t be afraid of fallout. Don’t be afraid to push back. Don’t be afraid of retaliation.

 Bullies try to scare you out of your own defense. Don’t let them.

 One more thing. If in the moment you forgot all of the above, and all you felt like you could do was laugh and slink away, don’t feel bad about that. Bullies are trying to hurt and intimidate in order to make themselves feel powerful. There will be times when a schmuck will blindside you so hard, it will be all you can do to stay upright. You just remember who you are, roll with the punch, and learn from the experience.

 Then, call me. Grandma, and I will take care of things. Grandma, Mammaw, and I will take it upon ourselves to fill in the gaps in that schmuck’s education. If there is anything left, we’ll let Dad, Grandad, and Peepaw manage the rest. Hoo can run clean up detail.

 Love,

Mom

 *i.e., I will skin the man and wear him for a hat. I’ll bring back the turban.