Dear Kid,

All of a sudden (it seems), the hot new trend is hookah. That is not the New England pronunciation of a street walker, it is the water pipe used to smoke tobacco. Hookah can also be called narghile, argileh, shisha, hubble-bubble, or goza but I have no idea why.

This “overnight” sensation (and I know it’s a sensation because John Taffer did a Bar Rescue episode for a hookah bar) began several centuries ago in Persia and India. So much for overnight, unless you’re Rip Van Winkle on steroids.

Some people think smoking tobacco through a hookah is safe. In a word, they are wrong, wrong, wrong. Also, they are not right. Here are the facts.

Hookah tobacco and smoke contain toxins that can cause clogged arteries and heart disease.

None of the toxins are taken out by the water or the smoke. Allow me to repeat: None. As in, not a-one.

Hookah smokers get the same fabulous menu of dread diseases cigarette smokers get including

• Oral cancer
• Lung cancer
• Stomach cancer
• Cancer of the esophagus
• Reduced lung function
• Decreased fertility

Only they probably have an increased risk because the way it’s used, hookah smokers generally absorb more of the toxins than cigarette smokers. An average hookah session lasts an hour, which generally translates to 200 puffs (an average cigarette lasts 20 puffs) and 90,000 milliliters of smoke (500 milliliters inhaled for a cig).

The second-hand smoke is worse too since you get the smoke from the tobacco and from the charcoal that’s used as the heat source.

Hookah smoking is generally a group activity and the pipe is passed around—which means the opportunity for infection from a shared mouthpiece. Oh, good.

Here’s the truth about more hookah mythology:

• Flavored tobacco isn’t healthier.
• Electronic hookah smoking (including steam stones and hookah pens) is not healthier.
• Tobacco-based shisha and “herbal” shisha are not healthier.
• The labels and ads that claim users can enjoy the same taste from hookah without the harmful effects of tobacco are blowing smoke. Toxic smoke.

Stay smoke free, kiddo.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Hope you had a good Fourth of July.

Dad, Booker, and I went to the Fourth of July parade in Montgomery.

Booker had a great time before the parade being admired by all sorts of small children. Then the parade started and no one paid much attention to him which didn’t make any sense at all.

The parade had the high school band (Go Aves!), the Shriner clowns, the politicians, the Santa band (love those folks), jugglers, more politicians (yes, Micah was there), a walking ice cream cone (adorable), veterans, a dog grooming salon (that threw treats for Booker which improved the entire outing in his estimation), mules (which sent Booker into a frenzy), dogs (ditto), stilt walkers, the sheriff’s bag pipe band, and lots of candy throwing. In other words, exactly what’s supposed to be in a The 4^th parade.

The crowd at the parade was a slice of Americana. There were families and dogs and grandparents and one particularly obnoxious man (shape of Large) sitting in an oversized folding chair (complete with a side tray to hold his food) who kept yelling “betcha can’t hit me, betcha can’t hit me, betcha can’t hit me” to the people throwing candy. Embracing the spirit of the day.

According to My Friend the Internet, there were lots of parades all across America this weekend, and even MFtI isn’t sure exactly how many. The vast majority are rather similar to ours. Which is just fine by me.

Happy Birthday, America!

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Once upon a time there were no toothbrushes (or teethbrushi). This was because people had no teeth (since they didn’t take care of them, their teeth all fell out). The general feeling in those days about breath was “blech.”

One day, Mrs. Neanderthal was admiring her last tooth (it was—at the time—considered to be a very attractive tooth) and hoping it would last as long as her dinner. Her hubby-type, Joe Neanderthal, had neglected to actually bring home dinner, so Mrs. N had a long while to wait. A long hungry while to wait. And while she waited, she chewed on a stick to try to get her tummy to stop rumbling. Her tooth lasted through several chew sticks and the toothbrush was born.

Mrs. N went on to expand her line of Sticks to Chew to include feathers, small bones, and porcupine quills. Mrs. N had quite a nice business going when Joe finally brought home a decent dinner and Mrs. N lost her final tooth chewing on some gristle.

Eventually, the Chinese and the Egyptians resurrected Mrs. N’s ideas and used chew sticks to clean their teeth. This was an Exceptionally Long Time Ago. At some point (still a long time ago) the Chinese invented the idea of using hog bristles attached to a bone handle to create toothbrushes.

Fast forward (to about 1780) and William Addis found himself in jail without access to a decent gift shop. At the time, people in England (that’s where he was) cleaned their teeth with a rag, soot, and salt. “Blech” thought William and he created a toothbrush. Once he got out of jail, he formed a company to mass produce toothbrushes. His company is still producing toothbrushes today, even though Will is long gone.

You would think with all these brushes around, teeth brushing would have been a big deal. You would have been wrong. It wasn’t until after WWII that the “time for night brushing of teeth” became common practice (extra points if you get the reference). Soldiers had learned (and by “learned” I mean were forced) to brush their teeth daily during the war and the practice caught on from there.

Nowadays, all kinds of disgusting things hang out on your toothbrush. If I were to tell you all about them your reaction (quite correctly) would be “blech” which seems to be something of a theme when it comes to oral hygiene. (If you really need to read about the ickies, the story is here on Mental Floss. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

To summarize:

• Brush your teeth.
• Clean your toothbrush.
• Avoid the “blech.”
• Live happily ever after.

Love, Mom

Sleep thoughts
Are spreading
Throughout the whole land.
The time for night-brushing of teeth is at hand.
Up at Herk-Heimer Falls, where the great river rushes
And crashes down crags in great gargling gushes,
The Herk-Heimer Sisters are using their brushes.
Those falls are just grand for tooth-brushing beneath
If you happen to be up that way with your teeth.

My favorite part from Dr. Seuss’ Sleep Book

Dear Kid,

A friend of mine who lives in Arizona called me the other night. Her son, the same age as you, was home for the college winter break and she was frustrated. Her formerly delightful child had changed some. Truth be told, she said, he was being rude and a royal pain in the patoot.

As we chatted, I realized no one had reviewed the Five Rules Every College Student Must Know with her son. A terrible oversight. I take full responsibility.

So without further ado, here are the

Five Rules Every College Student Must Know.

Children always need their parents and parents always need their children. Not always as in “every minute of every day” but always as in throughout our entire lives. As children grow up, the relationship changes, but it never disappears. At 2 months old, you needed someone to feed you and dress you and entertain you when sleep was not on your schedule (which was most of the time). At 12 years old, you needed to talk about friends and the Evils of Lunchroom Behavior. At 15 years old, we talked about driving, girls, food, and responsibility (and with Pi the impact of pink versus black nail polish). These days, we talk about college, responsibility, the future, jobs, girls, and food. Ok, some themes don’t change.

The point is no matter how old you get (personally, I intend to stop aging right about now), you will always be important to us. Hopefully, we will always be important to you.

We all have bad days. When I was a growing up, every now and then Grandpa would come home and say, “I am good and angry. It has nothing to do with you, but go easy.” Since we didn’t have no stupid children in our house, we went easy, he recovered from whatever had upset him, and life was good.

I knew I too occasionally used that type statement, but I didn’t realize how impactful it was (or perhaps how often I’d said it) until you came home from school one day and said, “I’m really angry. It has nothing to do with you, and I apologize in advance if I yell.” I was so proud of you for being able to identify that you were upset and still have the presence of mind to realize that just because people were in your general proximity didn’t mean they were responsible (and that you really didn’t intend to take it out on us).

We all have bad days. It’s not necessary to share the mood.

Rudeness–especially ongoing rudeness–is never OK. There is no call for rudeness, especially directed at your loving (and generally perfect) parents. There are no scientific studies (at least none that I’m aware of) showing the value of being a snot to your parents. There are no curricula (at least none that I’m aware of) for the first semester of college in which you are taught to be obnoxious to those who brought you into the world. There are no machines (at least none that I’m aware of) that somehow remove the phrases “please,” “thank you,” and “how can I help?” once you begin your college career.

This is your home, not a hotel. Hotels are great (as long as you can get a room). Other people clean the bathroom, other people make the beds and vacuum the floor, you can call room service and they’ll bring you all sorts of yummies. Of course, you’re generally confined to just one room (yours), the breakfast selection is limited (but if you’re a huge fan of bagels-from-a-bag and make your own waffles you might be set), and you have to pay astronomic amounts to spend the night with your head on a pillow that some stranger used the night before.

Home doesn’t come with all the servants (at least your home doesn’t), but it does come with food you can help yourself to, cars you can (sometimes) borrow, and rules. The rules, the chores, and the love are always here–no matter what. When you have your own home, you can make the rules (or not), eliminate the chores, and live however you like. And if you think that’s likely to happen, I will giggle until the cows come home because it’s amazing how one’s perspective on these things changes over time.

I’m sorry goes a long way. There are times when we are emotionally exhausted. When we’ve had to work really hard for a long time to hold it together. (For your sister, this was a daily occurrence when she was in pre-school.) Then we reach a safe spot and don’t feel the obligation to continue to have such a tight grip on ourselves, and we lose it.

Losing it looks different for different people. Some people yell, some people sulk, some people check out, some people become mass murderers. Some people aim for all at once. If you can recognize what’s going on in advance and warn the general public that you are a walking Mt. Vesuvius about to blow, that helps. If you can’t, and you end up spewing emotional lava all over your friends and family, don’t forget to apologize once the eruption is over. (Not right away, because you probably still have molten rock in your teeth. But as soon as you return to human status.) An apology makes a big difference.

To you, and my friend’s son who is now back in California getting ready for his second semester, I wish you a wonderful second half of your freshman year. You can do it, kid. You rock. (Not the molten kind.)

Love, Mom

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Dear Kid,

There has been a great deal written lately about freedom of speech. There has been even more said about freedom of speech.

But there has been almost nothing written about freedom to listen. Or—more to the point—freedom NOT to listen.

Some people seem to have interpreted “freedom of speech” to mean “I can say anything at all, any time, and any place no matter how stupid or offensive it might be.”

I absolutely agree that people should be allowed to be as stupid as they want. After all, they’re going to be idiots anyway, so why not endorse their right? Also, without utter stupidity we wouldn’t have the Darwin Awards.

I struggle with whether people should be allowed to be offensive. I believe in free speech, but I also believe that there are things that fall into the “going too far” category. It’s a tough one for me, because it is perfectly obvious (to me) that things that are offensive to one person might not be offensive to everyone; presumably the speaker is not offended by what he or she is saying (even though every other person on the planet might be). As I said, it’s a tough one.

What is not at all difficult for me is the Right Not To Listen. (TO BE CLEAR: The Right Not To Listen does NOT apply when your parents are talking to you.)

I firmly, completely, and absolutely believe that while someone may have the right to speak, I have an equal right not to have my ears and brain assaulted by whatever is falling out of the speaker’s mouth. I have the right to choose what I listen to—not just on the radio, not just by opting to attend one event but not another, not just by screening my calls with caller ID—but the vast majority of the time.

This is easy to enforce in the comfort of my own home. I can decide what to watch on TV or whether I subscribe to a newspaper or blog. We can even balance your right to listen to loud music with my simultaneous need for silence (you look great in headphones). But how do we decide in a public space?

When we’re at a sporting event, how do we balance my need not to listen to a lot of swearing with another fan’s right to swear like a drunken soldier (or drunken hockey fan)? When we’re at a shopping mall, how do we balance our right to have a conversation in normal tones with someone else’s right to share a political point of view at the top of the decibel scale?

Even more maddeningly, how do we balance my right to wear the fragrance of my choice with the right of the department store employee to douse me with the latest scent du jour? Never mind, that is too difficult a problem to tackle this century.

Amazingly, I don’t have an answer to any of these questions. But I know they are important to think about. And you’re a bright college kid—maybe you’ll come up with a workable answer.

IMPORTANT: You are one of the people I choose to listen to. Always.

Love, Mom

What are your thoughts on the rights of Free Speech and the Freedom Not to Listen? We’d love to know what you think (so there’s a place for comments right below this).

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Dear Kid,

I had coffee with a friend yesterday morning. We met at Panera and while it was great catching up, it was even more fun to watch all the comings and goings.

There was a lady with her young son (I’m guessing 4-ish). He was very disappointed to find out his orange juice had pulp in it (apparently they do not have pulp-y o.j. at home) but he behaved beautifully about the whole thing. If his mother had a slightly quieter voice or hadn’t been directly facing me I never would have known about it. 10 points to the kid.

There was a man sitting at the table next to me who was getting holiday cards ready for mailing. He had the whole production spread out over a table and was addressing, stuffing, and stamping with great precision. I don’t believe he was drinking oj (or anything else for that matter). He was also very quiet. 8 points (he wasn’t as cute as the little boy.)

There was the lady sitting next to the fireplace who was reading something complicated in German. I know this because she had brought along a German dictionary that was bigger than most school busses. I thought she was meeting someone because another lady came over put her stuff down. Then lady #2 disappeared, leaving her stuff. 6 points because I was confused.

Across the restaurant there was a Gathering of Women. About 10 ladies were together (having moved heaven, hell, and a great many tables to their satisfaction). They were too far away for me to hear them (for which I am somewhat grateful), but they seemed to be having a swell time. Extra points for happy people.

The gentleman two tables over was not having a good time. He had a bass voice that made Boris Karloff (the singer in the Grinch [original version]) sound like a tenor. He would work for a while and then talk on the phone for a while. Every time he talked it sounded like the center of the earth rumbling. He was quiet, but it was a surprise each time he opened his mouth. 1,000 points for the unexpected voice.

On the other side, there was a job interview. I could hear the occasional question, but mostly it was the aura of nerves that gave it away. Bonus points to help the dude get the job.

There were two old men having coffee together. Adorable. Give them as many points as they are years old. I’m estimating 200 each.

There were the general comings and goings of all the people in desperate need of caffeine and carbohydrates. The only one who gets points is the woman in the pink jacket who must have had bells someplace because she jiggled.

Then a guy came zooming in (Man On A Mission). He was late to meet Center of the Earth Voice, but COTEV seemed ok with it. No points for tardiness.

A round of applause and flavored cream cheese points to the Panera staff, because they were crazy cheerful today and they didn’t burn anything while we were there.

Hope your day is full of bonus points.

Love, Mom