History Repeating Itself

This morning I couldn't wait for my coffee to cool down, or I forgot to check it's temperature, which I usually do but being deep in the throes of Text Twist I got so excited I forgot to make sure it was not still too hot to guzzle down. For whichever reason, I grabbed my mug and took a huge swig which then burnt the bejebus out of my tongue and tonsils -- good thing I don't need them or anything. This reminded me of a story that I don't find too amusing but my family likes me to tell at any family gatherings and all major (and some minor) holidays. So if you can humor me a moment, I'd like to share that story.

Many years ago, when I was a young, gappy toothed, knock-kneed, shag haircut sporting Blindbeard I was actually a Girl Scout. That's right, I was a dedicated cookie selling machine. I pursued the whole getting-those-iron-on-patches with a zest that I don't think I have ever applied to anything since then. Not only did we have meetings each week where they served watered down Kool Aid -- which was invented in Nebraska -- in dixie cups (why only dixie cups is something I have never figured out. Earning those patches and selling cookies works up a thirst that requires more than a dixie cup can hold) and a single cookie as a bounteous snack, but we also had parties from time to time. These parties were held in the basement of the church that we attended every week because my parents are instruments of the devil and would only allow us to miss church if we were coughing up our lungs, vomiting blood, or shating out our entrails. And we never had coloring books or toys with us like one sees today with less tortured children than we were. We had to behave and pretend to listen to the sermon; anything less would get you 20 minutes on the couch at home where you had to sit like you should have while in church -- a hideous fate that we tried to avoid but sometimes forgot and messed around in church when we knew better. Like this one time when my mother had to take my older sister out of church because she was misbehaving and give her a spanking in the bathroom (back when spanking was the norm) and while she was gone I got into her purse, grabbed her lipstick and smeared it all over my lips in huge chunks that ruined her lipstick. My mother came back, took one look at me and took me to the bathroom. So in the basement of the church that was the bane of our existence, we were having our annual Christmas party. They were serving hot cocoa that was the temperature of lava direct from the earth's core and next to the dispensers of this boiling liquid they had straws. Now whether they were actually straws or stirring sticks for coffee, my memory doesn't tell me, they were all the same to me. I took a cup of cocoa and a straw and took a huge suck of this ridiculously hot beverage. It scalded my tongue and tonsils so bad I couldn't feel a thing on my tongue for 3 days. I must not have been the only one to do so because they moved the straws/stirring sticks down the table away from the hot cocoa after several draughts were served. To this day I can't figure out why anybody would serve hot cocoa with a straw. It was an experience that scarred me for life and made me scared of hot drinks for a long time. Even to this day I feel the reverberations of it and am uber careful with any hot beverage. So to be so careless as to guzzle my coffee without checking the temperature of it first was an act of stupidity on my part. Did I learn nothing from that whole experience?! Obviously I needed a reminder of exactly why I don't just hurl hot drinks down my gullet without ascertaining their exact degree first. I just hope it doesn't take 3 days again to regain any sensation in my tongue.