I'm a cock...

Why couldn't they have just said rooster?

but not in the penis way. But the title got your attention, right? It is my belief that only my really weird titles ever get views, so I'm alternating normal and weird titles as an experiment to test this theory. But I promise that the title has a lot to do with the actual story. It kind of is the story. I've been cycling through some of the family classics lately--the stories brought up to embarrass children through adulthood. These are the stories that are funny to everyone but the person they're about until that person just decides to get over their cockiness (heh heh) and laugh along. Because I was really weird and didn't have a lot of friends my age, I'm nearly always the subject of these stories. I'm also the youngest child, which means there were more people to remember my embarrassing moments, and mine are the most recent.

Today I went to Panda Garden with Kyle. Panda Garden is arguably the best Chinese food in Terre Haute, and I've been going since I was a baby. They even gave us a free meal once, because one time I packed a bag full of my old Burger King toys and handed them out to the waiters and waitresses. It was New Year's Eve, and their anniversary. Panda Garden and I are the same age. The owner was charmed (and who wouldn't be? I'm hella cute), and gave us our meal for free. That event, paired with the fact Panda Garden had the only vegetables I would eat, made it a frequent visit for the Markle-Thompson-Webster-Dunahee family.

Panda Garden had those placemats (I don't care what my internet spellcheck thinks. Placemats is totally one word), with the Chinese Zodiac on them and personality traits of each animal. I'm pretty sure most Chinese restaurants has those, actually, now that I think about it. Anyway, unfortunately, I'm a rooster. <--That's what I should have said over lunch with my family and my friend Brittany.

I was one of those kids who never really got sexual references until like... high school. Yeah. It wasn't until "that's what she said" became a regular part everyone's vocabulary that I understood any of it. Then I probably took it too far, because when you give a 14 year-old that phrase, when they've always been the last one to get innuendos, they're going to abuse it. And before I knew anything about "she," or anything, really, cock only meant rooster. At least to me.

And one day I said it a little too loudly, because I talk loudly all the time (now that I think of it. No one should have ever told me I was a cock based solely on how much, how quickly, and how loudly I speak). "I'm a cock." And Mom was like, "Maddie, don't say that so loud." And because I was sensitive about being a loudmouth, I said it louder to piss her off. And it went from there. And in the middle of my defiant rant that left everyone at the table and surrounding tables debilitating-ly uncomfortable, I said "Darren's a cock, Ian's a cock, I'm a cock..." and I wouldn't shut up.

I'm a cock
Ian's a cock
Darren's a cock
I'm a cock
I'm a cock
I'm a cock...

And Brittany was in that I'm not sure if I'm allowed to laugh so I'm just going to look really awkward and try not to really, really hard kind of place, and Mom desperately tried to make me shut up, which made me even more of a brat about it.

It wasn't until we got out to the car that Mom said, "Maddie. Cock is another word for penis."

And I was mortified.

And since my family has used that story any time Chinese food came into conversation, or anytime they possibly could in order to mortify me. It wasn't so much that I was embarrassed I'd said those things. It was more embarrassment that I was in like... 6th grade and still didn't know what cock meant. But now that I'm older, 6th grade sounds pretty damn young. AND I can totally blame my ignorance on Catholic school and the Disney Channel.

Not. My. Fault. It's also the combined effort of my parents that I'm a cock in the first place. In theory, this is basically everyone's fault but mine. I'm going to stick with that.