Spitting. Not cool since 1997.

It’s probably my fault for teaching Truett how to spit. I don’t know why I did it but it was one of those things that just sort of happened.

He was brushing his teeth and gargling his mouth with the water the way most people do. You know, like standing over the sink and letting the water fall out of his mouth. And then I thought, ok he could do that, or what would be even cooler is if he could learn to spit like a real man.

At this point, I blame Leonardo DiCaprio, who spat with such finesse in Titanic that I remember watching it as a 15-year-old and thinking that one day I would teach my son the proper way to spit so that if he ever needed to win a girl’s heart by spitting, he’d know how to.

Admit it, you thought it was cool too. I won’t judge.

Fast forward 15 years and even though my rational mommy brain said “that’s a terrible thing to teach your kid”, some part of my residual 15-year-old subconscious mind was all “shut up, spitting is cool.”

So that’s the story of how I taught my son to spit.

Which was a while back and it was a one-off thing. Not like we made it a daily practice session or anything.

A couple of day ago, I was picking the kids up from school and I was preparing to load them into the car when this elderly man wearing an ah pek white singlet walked past where we were standing. The kids politely made way for him to pass and just as he ambled past, he cleared his throat with a loud, manly grunt. You know, the kind that sounds like the throttle of a speedboat, “HRRRR-EHHHRRRM!!!” So we all turned to look and right then, he spat out the biggest glob of phlegm I have ever seen. It flew like 5 metres from his mouth and landed right smack into the drain beside him.

Kirsten immediately covered her mouth and said “EEEEWWWWW” while Truett looked on with fascination. I would even go as far as to call it awe. He looked at the old uncle and then tried to peer into the drain to locate the massive globule.

In comparison, my feeble attempts at spitting must have seemed terribly lame. This, this is how a real man spits, he probably thought.

“Son, remember the time mommy taught you how to spit?”

He nodded, a little too enthusiastically.

For the record, I deeply regret ever teaching him that. “Ok, don’t ever do it, it’s gross and germy. If you have phlegm, use a tissue ok?”

“Only can do it when I’m brushing my teeth?” he offered helpfully.

“Um, I think let’s not ever do it at all. Spitting hasn’t been cool since 1997. We’ll find something else to learn, how about that?”

“Like swimming?”

“Totally like swimming. Let’s do swimming.”