Caution: Dip Ahead

By Camryn

I was reminiscing the other day, remembering my first “real” party. (Ah, good times...)
It was my friend’s sweet 16th birthday. She had invited not only all our friends from school, but she had invited a LOT of guys too. It was at that party that I met my future ex-boyfriend. (Do you like how I introduced him?)

I remember seeing him sitting on a couch with a couple of other cute guys. I was on the opposite end of the room. At one point, they walked across the room and asked what my “SiGn” was.

I had NO CLUE! What the HECK were they were talking about?
What was my sign? Um……..

I was 16 and I was not some dumb blonde, but I was trying to figure out what they meant. Were they talking about road signs? What was my favorite road sign?
I almost said, “Duck Crossing,” but THANK GOODNESS, I didn’t.

You would think at 16 years of age I would have known about astrological signs, the zodiac horoscopes, etc. N-O-P-E. Believe it or not, no one had ever shown them to me or told me about them. So here I was at my first "real" party, there were two great looking guys standing in front of me and asking me a mysterious question and I was wracking my brain for an answer.

What was my sign…what was my sign….I chanted, silently.

I was clever. I figured it out! I held up my index and middle finger and spread them apart to make a “V” and I said, “Peace…?”

They laughed pretty hard, thinking I was one funny Chiquita. I chuckled, cluelessly, not knowing what the joke was. I then asked what their sign was, hoping their answers would shed some light on their odd question. They replied through their laughter, “Scorpio,” the other, “Cancer.”

It’s a good thing my facial expressions didn’t give me away. Freaks…really cute freaks…

Were they Trekkies, speaking Klingon, or members of some secret x-men group? There was a small part of me that wanted to say, “And I’m Adios,” before walking away to spare myself a conversation that was REALLY getting weird. But--I didn’t.

It was a long, LONG TIME later, almost a year later, when I figured out what they were talking about. (I had a really good laugh at myself. I'm such a dumbnut...*GaSp!* There goes my Christian potty mouth again....)

I’m proud to say that I am a Pisces—the fish. But I do find it humorous that I hate fish and will not even go into the same room where it is being cooked. Well, it’s not like the zodiac signs and food choices go hand in hand…it’s also not like I’m going to be eating my zodiac sign….um….okay, so I have nothing in common with my sign…..I just think a fish sign is weird, especially if you’re a vegetarian……I think I’m losing this battle…and I think I'm gonna stop now….


Now as my kids grow older, I have taught them a little about zodiac signs. I wouldn’t want to subject them to a humorous, embarrassing moment like mine. They’ll be ready to answer the question if anyone asks them what their “sign” is, to prevent them from answering something stupid like:

Actually, if one of them did say "Dead End," I’d pat her head and congratulate her on being a good girl. “That’s exactly what you should say to boys.” In fact, being a mom and wanting to educate and protect my daughters as much as possible, I’ll tell them to say their sign is:

OR

And MOST especially: