Admit it. Deep in your heart you believe you are the product of immaculate conception. We *all* do, because none of us can imagine our parents um ... you know ... DOING IT.

Ewwwwwwwww. Gross. (Marn turns beet red with embarassment, then makes cat-coughing-up-furball sounds).

S-e-x was never talked about when I was growing up, never. As far as I can tell, my generation invented sex sometime in the 1960's. Yep. Really.

Before that, nobody knew anything about it. They sure as heck didn't talk about it like we do now, eh, so I have to assume *we* invented it. We sure talk about it enough.

My parents did have other stuff they wanted to talk about but keep secret from me and my sisters. When I was really young, they used Pig Latin. You know, ig-Pay atin-Lay.

Although I am not the sharpest pencil in the box, I glommed on to *that one* rather quickly, so then my parents moved on to spelling words they didn't want us to understand.

I credit my spelling abilities and early grasp of reading to this habit of my folks'. Bless their hearts, they got me hooked on phonics young.

Marn, weasel child, had a pretty sweet deal going for a while there. I would paste on my "I don't have a clue what's going on here" face (my normal expression, the one that sums up my basic grasp of life) and quietly decipher what my parents considered to be Enigma level coding.

My younger sister let the cat out of the bag one suppertime, when she said out loud a word my parents were spelling. DOH!

And with that, my window into the secret world of adults closed.

My parents didn't open it to me again until I turned 19 and came home the first time from university with my ears pierced. Yes, boyz and girlz, *that* was my big "You're *Not* The Boss of *Me* Anymore" gesture. Pitiful. Just plain pitiful. Sigh.

It seems so lame to me now 'cuz I have, like, four earrings in each ear. And some of my kid's friends have stuff pierced I *do not* want to think about. But back then, in my family, getting your ears pierced was a big deal.

Dad and I had been battling about it all through my high school years. Only chippies had pierced ears, he said, said he. (Chippies are ladies who sell their um, er, ah charms for money. There, see, you learned a new word. Isn't Diaryland cool?)

Now *where* was I, know there was a point here somewhere. (Rummaging sound. Marn reappears with a triumphant look. Found it.) Anyhow, my father took one look at my ears that fateful Thanksgiving weekend and through gritted teeth said, "Like you needed any more holes in your head" ... but he stopped treating me like a kid.

Which reminds me, before I forget, note to my own kid:

Yes, it *was* immaculate conception. Yep. Really.

--Marn