Run, get your panties!!!!

As one ages you tend to look back on your childhood and recall times of joy, the silly things that you did with the family. The traditions you had at the holiday and the many little quirks that made your family what it was.

I really enjoy baking. I find it challenging, satisfying and therapeutic. Since my Nana (dad's mom) has passed I find when I am baking and using her recipes I am able to be close to her again. I credit both my grandmothers for my love of baking, but that is where the similarities end and the quirks begin.

Recently I was making buttertarts at my aunts home in Winnipeg and I was reminded of the times I would bake with my other grandmother, my mom's mom who for a lack of better words was a complete whack job! When you are living your childhood things just seem normal, that is until you are old enough to compare yourself and your experiences with the outside world and realize maybe not so much with the normal.

I am the oldest of three children, my sister is 4 years and my brother is 6 years younger then myself. My sibling and I would often bake with the whack job, as she lived with us. We'd make wonderful goodies like jam filled cookies, muffins and cakes and have a grand time doing it.

We would all be off playing when you'd hear whack job shout out, "Who wants to bake...run and get your panties"! We would drop everything, jump up and in giggles of excitement cry, "I do, I do"! We would run down the hall as fast as our tiny legs would take us. At the oldest I would have been 8 or 9. Most kids would be tearing of towards the kitchen, but we were rushing off to our bedrooms. We would scramble into our rooms, pull open our dresser drawers and grab ourselves a crisp pair of white cotton panties and then tear off to the kitchen where whack job was eagerly waiting. She would start getting the baking items ready, my brother and sister would pull up chairs to kneel on and all together we would stand at the counter, wide eyed bubbling enthusiasm with our panties on our heads!

Yep, panties on our heads...Quirky! Whack job had a strict set of regulations when it came to working in the kitchen.

1. Hands must be washed with warm water and lots of soap. Remember in between fingers, back and front, and under your nails.
2. All dishes, surfaces and accessories must be clean before starting. We do not bake or cook in a dirty kitchen.
3. No hair touching, playing with your mouth, nose picking, coughing, sneezing, scratching or taste testing will be allowed.
4. Panties must be worn on heads at all times.

I do agree and practice all 1 through 3 as an adult, however long gone our the days where my ass and head are the same size!

Rule #4 was to prevent our hair from coming into contact with the baking. I agree that hair belongs no where in the kitchen and what a turn off to find hair in your food, but is a pair of panties really the solution? What the hell is wrong with a pony tail or tie our hair in a bun. I don't think my brother even had hair. At worst case scenario...a shower cap.

I am thinking about what experiences my grandmother may have had that drove her to force panties onto our heads. Perhaps she had eaten hair infested girl guide cookies and associated children with hairy baking. Ate muffins made for a church bazaar by rapidly balding children? I don't know the answers, but I see flaws in the panties theory.

1. Panties...Hello even though they are washed they do live in the dirty bits region. And I never recall her checking to see if we actually got clean panties, I just know I did.
2. Did she ever notice the two leg holes, not really ideal for optimum coverage. I remember my sister's head with her short hair sticking out through the leg holes. She looked like a troll doll at a frat party.
3. Now my brother if he were 2 he would have had to been wearing plastic training pants and I don't recall seeing that...so my sisters panties? How psychologically damaging is that! No wonder the he hates sweets as an adult.

So I lived life thinking that I was normal, that everyone doing their Christmas baking was wearing panties on their heads. I was wrong eh? No one else did that? Anyone?

I always wondered why Julia Childs never had panties on her head. Imagine the confusion and bewilderment surrounding chef hats...who wears panties like that, so starchy.

So it's no wonder I am the way I am. There was really no way I could have turned out right. I haven't been tagged yet with what makes me weird, but this one would fall in the top 5 I am sure.