Deb Kim’s Dead Language Advice

Best advice I have ever gotten? Easy. It was in 1979, during Latin class at prep school. Don’t laugh, I loved Latin and well, my Dad made me take it. At least I didn’t have to learn a new alphabet like my friends who took Greek. My teacher was Mark Harrington, a funny, engaging guy who looked and acted like Bill Murray. If we could translate a sentence, he’d exempt us from a pop quiz and set us free to roam about the common room where we would ogle and flirt with boys in Levi’s cords and rumpled Brooks Brother’s buttoned down shirts. The sentence was the best advice I have ever received:

Semper ubi sub ubi.*

The photo is from an autism moment a couple of years ago. One of my girls was trying out her new scissors skills (darn you successful occupational therapy!) on my bras. Translate the sentence and the photo will make perfect sense. At least in my world!

(*Stumped?)

15 Replies to “Deb Kim’s Dead Language Advice”

  1. Hilarious “succesful OT” I always say be careful what you wish for lol. If you had always been wearing your underwear (well all of them at one time ๐Ÿ˜‰ it may have been different. Good advice btw

  2. I had a floormate at Tufts who showered in her underwear. I remember her name. I can picture her face, and her sopping wet bra and panties in the shower. She was from a conservative family, prominent in Boston. I’d been to boarding school – we showered together and didn’t give a rats behind about modesty.

  3. Commando? I have a story about going sans undies in my book for my daughter Mia. “A good friend will give you the shirt off her back. A good Mom will give her child her underwear.” It’s true.

    ๐Ÿ™‚

  4. You mean my Costco panties instead of my Target panties? Once you’ve had autism wipe you out financially, the La Perla’s are no longer an option.

  5. Oh dear. I hope you’re laughing (now) because you’ve helped the rest of us smile.
    I, too, learned good old “semper ubi” in Latin class (also in prep school, ironically, though not yours). I learned the real-world application after my parents bought us a long-desired dog – a Lhasa Apso that considered underpants even better than Milk-bones, and liked to chew them on the living room floor.
    For the record, an agile dog with a panty fetish does not mix well with a teenage girl just starting to date. There’s nothing like sitting in the living room, wishing your dad would finish his “chat” with the cute boy who just came to pick you up, and having the dog drag a pair of your Victoria’s Secrets into the middle of the rug, flop down and start….well, yeah, you can figure it out from there.

  6. Your mother let you wear Victoria’s Secret? Wow. I was wearing Lollipops until college, I think! So your dog didn’t pant, he pantied? ๐Ÿ™‚

  7. Yeah, we used to make jokes about buying a “Tibetan Panty Hound” by mistake. I actually ended up calling the police on the dog once…by mistake…but that’s another story. I’ll try to blog it at some point.

    My mother got pulled into the Victoria’s Secret thing early on, partly because I was kind of geeky by nature (always had my nose in a book) and she wanted me to be popular. I’m not sure how buying me underwear that nobody ever saw helped boost my popularity – especially at a uniform school – but she meant well (and frankly, it’s still comfy underwear…)

  8. I’m loving Susan S’s comment. The Underwear of Popularity is seriously one of the best things I’ve ever heard.

    Having a Latin pun at the ready makes me feel particularly erudite. Get me to a cocktail party immediately!!!!

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