Never Put a Dime up Your Nose and Other Bits of Mama Wisdom

I’m sure that all mothers, from all countries and all geographical areas of those countries, offer their children words of wisdom as their children are growing up to help them avoid making foolish mistakes, being physically maimed, or embarrassing themselves. Southern mamas are no different. However, I can’t help but think that certain “bits of wisdom” are ubiquitous to Southern mamas, and other bits are unique to my mama, for example:   

1. Happiness is finding a hair in your biscuit. (I once asked Mama how on earth finding a hair in one’s biscuit could possibly make one happy. Her response: “You’re happy if it’s your hair and you made the biscuits.” I guess her point was that no one else ate the hair.)
2. Black clothing attracts everything but men and money. (Granted, black clothing tends to attract lint and dandruff; however, I have news for my mama: I once had a tight, short black dress that attracted plenty of men, and had I been so inclined, which I wasn’t, I’m sure it could have also attracted money.)
3. Never shove a dime up your nose. (I learned the hard way that this bit of Mama Wisdom contains much painful truth.)
4. Always wear clean underwear when you leave the house. (Mama said that it was important to impress the paramedics if you were ever in an accident. After all, it wouldn’t do to have them think you never washed your “drawers.”.)
5. Always take your Christmas tree down before New Year’s Day or else you’ll have bad luck for the entire New Year. (I’m sure she said this because we always had a real tree and by the New Year, it was dry as kindling and shedding all over the living room floor.)
6. If you sweep the floor on New Year’s Day, they’ll carry a dead body out of the house by the end of the year. (I don’t know whom Mama meant by “they” since she never explained; however, she certainly made me hesitant to sweep the floor on New Year’s Day; and, in fact, I never do sweep on New Year’s Day since I’m afraid to push my luck.)
7. If you frown and pout too much, your face will freeze that way. (I guess this is why we kids went around the house smiling like idiots all the time.)
8. There’s no excuse to be dirty because soap is cheap and water is free. (Soap isn’t that cheap today, Mama, and in most places water sure isn’t free.)
9. If you go to bed on a full stomach, you’ll have nightmares. (I don’t know about this, especially since I tend to have nightmares about giant burgers and mountains of French fries chasing me down dark alleyways if I go to bed on an empty stomach.)
10. If you let a boy French kiss you, you’ll get pregnant. (I actually believed this bit of wisdom when I was a teenager, so the first time a boy French kissed me I went home and gargled with an entire bottle of Listerine. Only later did I learn that it took a bit more than a mere kiss—French or otherwise—to get one pregnant.) 
11. Eating dirt will make you wormy. (Well, maybe there’s some truth to this bit of wisdom. Although I hate to admit it, when I was a preschooler, I used to crawl under the house and eat dirt, and, sure enough, I got worms.)
12. A loaf of stale bread from your mama is better than a quarter from a burglar. (Don’t ask me to explain because this is one bit or Mama Wisdom I never understood and still don’t even today.)

Image: Southern Front Porch retrieved from Google Images (2015) www.etsy.com