The Card Says Moopsy
I fought Murphy’s Law and the Law won, and by Law I mean a halfheartedly thieving monkey
Ahoy neighbors!
Due to indulgence in some soothingly insular community time, I might be slinging around some inside-joke jargon.
It’s not a cult. It’s the Friends of DeSoto. The Friends of DeSoto are Trekkies who are embarrassingly dorky even by Trekkie standards. :) As easily as I could talk all about hoerl, Boerdy and other words with r-flavored diphthongs added in for silly reasons, the only relevant term is Moopsy.
In Star Trek: Lower Decks, there is a one-episode creature called the Moopsy that can only say its name like a Pokemon. It’s adorable and the joke is that it consumes bones. I was told — in the dubious way that many of us acquire information while scrolling to avoid work — that breastfeeding might cause a some bones to be dissolved for the breast milk. In that case, all breastfeeding babies are Moopsies…and maybe the cartoon (did I mention that Lower Decks is animated?) Moopsy is something like a baby mammal rather than a horror carnivore. Where is the big Moop? Is it part of the Seinfeld universe?
All that to say, I find it so amusing to call my baby the Moopsy. In a single week the Moopsy has been vaccinated and visited some important places.
In other news, I wish it wasn’t so easy to feel competitive about all aspects of a child’s life. Last month, the child was exactly 50th percentile for weight and 75th percentile for height. Wow, I had a tall child and was excessively proud of a happenstance I barely influenced by having access to adequate nutrition.
This month, the Moopsy is not taller than 3 out or 4 babies. The point of percentiles isn’t to compete with other babies. It’s probably to reassure panic-oriented folks like me that their children are going to survive and within a normal range. The doctor again reassured me that some babies grow slowly at this stage.
The postpartum depression was…bad. Unfortunately a huge portion of people have experienced both depression and trauma. Maybe it’s now unusual to not struggle with some truly awful memories and environments. I don’t know if my peers understand why I sometimes can’t talk or make eye contact, or if they turn to each other and muse about how weird and rude they think I am.
I was feeling abnormally functional after successfully taking the Moopsy to an appointment both on time and without forgetting anything. I bought coffee and fruit on the way to class and was proud of myself for being able to talk coherently to multiple people in my third language. They were able to understand what I was saying and didn’t have to wave it off as nonsense.
But then I was walking and was slammed out of the semi-float through the world of an OK mood. I felt a sudden, forceful tug on my arm.
It was a generalized, violent force on the general area of my arm. The loftiness of dissociating to a nicer, safer world most of the time meant it took a beat to go back to my irl body at irl school and make sense of what was happening.
For the last few years, I was familiar with sudden taps, jabs, smacks and elbows. That was how many of my colleagues and most strangers preferred to interact with me — pretty much anything is preferred to allowing me the dignity of being communicated to with words. That was a big part of why I dissociated while commuting and while at school or outside in general. Part of it was the overstimulation of the tropical sun, noise pollution, unexpected smells and uneven roads. Part of it was the fear that and person I looked at would either give me a stinktastic stink face of anger or start furiously waving their arms in a go-over-there-you-bad-dog motion.
But there wasn’t a person I knew viciously greeting me with their elbows at my ribs. It wasn’t a strange person trying to order me to go in a particular direction. It wasn’t a local yokel glaring at me for looking at them.
It was a native macaque tugging on my bag of fruit and coffee. What a foolish move to so alluringly swing it around on my fingertips while daydreaming my way through town.
The monkey seemed surprised to have successfully nabbed my plastic container of orange melon. I was alarmed that I’d committed the cardinal sin of looking directly at a monkey. I was afraid if I tugged the food back and ran, it would be contaminated with monkey hand germs, and I couldn’t eat or drink my loot anyway. I was afraid the monkey would jump and bite and I’d have to miss class to go get a rabies shot.
I was most afraid of how I was now in trouble for not being careful enough and letting the violence happen to me. I couldn’t tell anyone I had been lightly attacked and gently mugged by the beautiful wildlife of my beautiful home because I would not find comfort or safety. I would only hear how I should have been more careful. I should pay a fine for letting a monkey have people food. I would face a firing squad of acquaintances and randos lining up to scold me for my carelessness.
Don’t tell anyone I accidentally let a monkey steal my melons and coffee. The melons are probably reasonable primate food. I won’t look it up. I also suspect the advanced drink-sealing technology of this beverage-happy island might stymie a tailed primate.
I’ll find another way to get in trouble, like calling my baby a Moopsy and letting the Moopsy learn how to take selfies at two months old.
