The Origins of Frecklations

I am surrounded by freckles. The Captain has them, although hers are the lightest and sparsest of anyone in the family. The General has them all over his face. The Major is the most heavily freckled child of the three, the one who most closely resembles his mother. She doesn’t have a bare spot of skin that has seen the sun and not become covered with those little brown dots. And I love them. Every summer the Boss’ freckles regain their strength and turn a darker brown, like a rechargeable battery after a night on the charger. It’s one of the many things that I love about her.

It was at dinner two nights ago that I wondered aloud if it were possible to detect a specific pattern of freckles on each of their faces. Did genetics allow for the possibility that each person had an identical spread of freckles in the same location much like a mole or a birth mark can be passed from one generation to the next, or were their freckles truly randomly spread? They each have so many freckles that it would be hard to detect a pattern just looking at them during daily interaction. We’d have to look at close-up pictures of their faces side-by-side.

“Do you mean a frecklation?” General Mayhem asked.

“Yes!” I laughed. “Freckle constellations on your faces.”

While the Boss patiently shook her head, we discussed possible names and stories for freckles on the nose, the cheek, or the chin. It could make for a fun homeschooling creative writing project. She thought that she had heard every freckle joke possible by this point in her life. That was before she met me and our heavily speckled off spring.

“Did you know that the word ‘constellation” is actually a mistranslation of the word ‘constipation’?” the General asked.

“Constipationem” and “ Constellationem” are fairly close. I guess it is possible.

“Does that date back to the time when the commode was outside and people who were waiting to go had nothing better to do than sit and look at the nighttime sky?” I asked.

The General started to laugh. The Boss grimaced.

“I suppose if you were pushing hard you might see double.” I puffed out my cheeks and made my eyes bulge. “That would explain Gemini, the twins.”

Since it was dinner, I reminded the young lad that we were pushing the envelope of acceptable dinner conversation quite far, a comment that received a nod of approval from the Boss. We dropped the subject.

It is fun to watch the General’s mind work. Some of the stuff he comes up with is original, surprising, and very funny. He’s a good set-up man. When he learns to finish the joke, I think he’s going to give me quite the challenge.

If anyone does assign a Frecklation myth as a writing project, let me know. We’ll post them here.