Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Kinkling


Hipee, you knew this story would be coming. I know you’ve probably dreaded it and will deny it, but sweetie pie, there are too many witnesses still alive and it’s time to tell the next generation. Hipee and I kinkled as children. Not only did we kinkle, but we did it together.

For some odd reason mom tried to teach me to say I had to tinkle when I had to pee. So, instead of saying I had to use the bathroom, or the restroom, or pee, I said I had to tinkle, only I said it as kinkle. That is odd enough and a good example of why you should not give cute names to normal bodily functions. Even the numbering system of #1 or #2 is better than kinkling/tinkling. I don’t know if ED tinkled or not. It would be even more disturbing if he also said he had to tinkle. (Note: ask ED if he tinkled/kinkled as a child.)

But the story of kinkling gets better. Hipee is 2 years younger than me, so I was all potty trained and kinkling before her. By the time she was ready for potty training, I did it. I potty trained Hipee. I went in to kinkle and she followed me. Then she kinkled too. We were kinkling buddies. I had to go, Hipee followed. We kinkled. One went, the other went. Every time.

I don’t know when it stopped. Obviously we went on our own at school, but when we were together, we kinkled together. And we still said “kinkle” even though at this point we knew #1 and pee and other words for tinkling/kinkling. We may have finally stopped the kinkling buddy system when I was about 10. I know… a little slow on the uptake, weren’t we?

At about age 10, or maybe 9, I clearly remember running into the house to kinkle and Hipee following me, ‘cus, you know, that’s how we rolled. When I went to kinkle, Hipee followed. Dad was in the hall as I went charging past him into the bathroom, Hipee hard on my heels.

“Good Grief! Do you always have to go into the bathroom together!” grumbled Dad.

Hmmm… Did we?
Certainly there were times we could and did kinkle alone. There was no hard rule that Hipee had to follow me into the bathroom. Yes, she had always done so since she first started kinkling. It was our standard MO. But did we have to go together? Well, no. We were both perfectly capable of kinkling all on our own. It was an epiphany. We could do solo kinkling at home.

Now if we could just eliminate this urge to call it kinkling.

4 comments:

Literary Feline said...

When I was potty training age, my family was living in Hawaii and so my mother taught me to refer to having to tinkle as shi shi, which is commonly used in that state. To this day, I still find myself using it occasionally.

Lori L said...

LOL! Shi shi at least has some cultural reference.

just me said...

It kinda makes me think of another appropriate word, too . . .

Lori L said...

I think you mean an INappropriate word, Just Me - or at least an inappropriate one to teach to children.