Kate from Duluth writes:

Does sneezing let some God out of us? Is it a sin?

I would answer ‘no’ to both of those questions, so why do we say ‘bless you’?
I never wondered this until I was about seven, because up until that point ‘bless you’ isn’t what I thought was being said.

So here’s the story…

When I was about seven I was sitting in my parents’ room while my mom was getting dressed to go to work. It happened to be allergy season, and my mom just happened to sneeze. Like I had been doing since I could talk I said ‘gless you’ and just continued with looking around being a curious little girl and that’s when I got the unfortunate news.

I still don’t understand why you would bless someone when they sneeze, but that’s how life goes I guess… That was just one story from when I used to be stupid.

Kristin has big dreams for her job as an adult:

I was raised by wonderful, deeply religious parents. When I was about five or six years old someone had apparently convinced me that “model” was synonymous with “stripper”. Which was unfortunate because at that age, I really wanted to be a model when I grew up (I had big dreams ok?). So, to my parents’ torture, people really liked to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, to which I would proclaim “I WANT TO BE A STRIPPER!” and invariably strike some kind of borderline “model” pose with my lips puckered.

It’s been 20 years, and my family still asks me if my dreams have come true yet.

Mel drops the S-Bomb in this coming of age tale:

Mothers of toddlers will chuckle and whisper stories of how their child said “insert your favorite cuss” for the first time. As much as the parent feels they should be disapproving, “they’re only three, they don’t know what it means.”

Unfortunately, when you’re eight you just get smacked.

We were driving home from the store, my grandfather and grandmother in the front, and my mother in the back with me. The topic of conversation was centered around something clumsy that my grandmother had done. I’m not sure if I had heard the word before and believed it meant “klutz” or heard “klutz” and just mispronounced it, but I giggled and boldly proclaimed, “Grandma, you’re such a slut!” This was the one and only time my parents slapped me. “Don’t ever use that word again!” With tears, “W-w-w-why mommy?”

These days I know the difference between “klutz” and “slut,” as well as a “klutzy slut” (“An accident?! You just slipped & fell onto it?!”)