What? No. Girl. Seriously?

My adoring husband has a very warped sense of humor which gets him in trouble a lot, usually with me. Weird pain in his knee? "Probably cancer." he'll say. Left eye twitching? "Cancer." Hang nail? That's right. "It's cancer." I HATE it when he says that. I think it bothers me most because my mom was soooo superstitious when I was growing up so you never said those kinds of things. Never. Why? Because then you'll get cancer. Ever hear of Murphy's Law??? Duh!

So last Thursday after an unplanned nap on bother of our parts, Adam and I woke up when Emily got home from school. A short time later a neighbor boy downstairs came to hang out at our house for a few minutes until his mom got home from work. He's about a year older than Emily and is just the nicest kid and his parents are awesome. His dad is a Marine but not the big veiny-necked kind of Marine. He's more of a kinder, gentler Marine. His mom is a very sweet person that would probably feel bad after having to scrape a deadly spider off the bottom of her shoe.

We were sitting at the dining room table when his mom showed up and we had only been talking for a few minutes when she looked at Adam and said, "Why are you so pale? Does he look pale? Are you getting sick?" That's when I said, "Eh. It's cancer." Immediately I wanted to take it back and go stick my head in the oven, but not for any of the reasons mentioned above. The reason I was just about to hurl myself off our deck is because this sweet boy is a cancer survivor. He got some form of leukemia when he was a baby that was serious enough that the Marines never sent his father overseas. In his 11 years as a Marine he has always had a desk job basically so he could be near his son. His mother has probably been through things with her little boy that I cannot imagine and what did I say to her--JOKINGLY???? "Eh. It's cancer." Who has two thumbs and is the biggest jerk in the state of Iowa? *This Girl*

I searched her face immediately afterwards to make sure she wasn't going to freak out. Adam turned and gave me the same look I would have given him if the roles were reversed. We were having some kind of "Freaky Friday" moment and I was Jamie Lee Curtis wondering why I was spewing such garbage out of my mouth. The next few seconds are a blur but I do remember saying something along the lines of, "I can't believe I said that." To which Adam said, "Yeah, me neither. I'M usually the one to say that kind of thing." "I know, and I HATE that!"

I think we were both having this conversation so our sweet neighbor wouldn't grab her kid by the elbow and make a bee-line for the door, crying hysterically. I think she understood that we weren't some kind of inconsiderate freaks and we spent the next 10-15 minutes or so just chilling out and having a great gossip gab about other neighbors. The whole subject was dropped and forgotten about until I flashed back on it tonight at work. It was one of those moments where you think back on what you did and you gasp, smash your palm into your forehead and go, "Jesus! You idiot!" I'm hoping that by telling you, Internet, it will help me atone for what I've done. It will...right? Right? Crap. I'm screwed.