The Death of a Bad Habit

When people say "bad habits" it will always signify my first habit: thumb sucking. Now reader, I'm confessing something huge here, so no malicious comments about how strange I am. I sucked my thumb up until I was a freshman in high school. And I'm not talking about a pucker now and then; I'm talking about full on, I couldn't fall asleep with out my thumb in my mouth, my right thumb is now misshapen, thumb sucking.

My bad habit was not a solo crime. I had an accomplice. A yellow, soft, and lovable accomplice. My first best friend Bert was with me every step of the way. Like all of my habits, I can't pinpoint a time when it began. And like all addictions, the act of sucking my thumb became more important than the reason I was sucking my thumb. I loved Bert so much that I needed replacement Berts as the older ones became too decrepit for the frantic life of a toddler, or preteen, or teenager.




















Some of our adventures I remember first hand. Others need to be related to me through my family. That's the funny thing about Bert: he was a family event. A type of family member.

I remember my brother and I accidentally split him in half on a camping trip. My dad had to sew him back together. To this day, years later, I don't think I've seen my dad sew again. I remember seeing a Taco Bell employee pull Bert out of the time-lock safe because I had left him behind the night before. My mother often reminds me that she had to ask a janitor at a street fair to help her look for Bert because he fell out of my stroller. I remember summer days where I would put Bert in the freezer so he would come out stiff and cool.

I don't remember the exact time when I broke my Bert habit, but I do know that Bert and I were together for over 10 years. Saving maybe my brother, my friendship with Bert is the longest friendship I've had with a male companion. I don't keep in touch with any of my elementary or middle school friends. And the few high school friends I still know have only been in my life for about 8 years.

It seems strange to refer to my first best friend as a "bad habit." I gloss over his identity with two pejorative words. Now, I say his name more as a joke than as a term of endearment. Strange how I've demoted him to be a faint memory like the kid who lived next door or my elementary school crush. He gave me his life, and I've repaid him with this worthless blog post.

But maybe that is the life cycle of bad habits. Perhaps they need to die in order for us to move on. Perhaps they must be demoted in order for us to sleep with our arms at our sides rather than with our hands in our mouths.

I put my thumb in my mouth today, in his honor. It didn't fit in my mouth very well. It tasted salty. I thought about all the disease-ridden hands I shook today. It felt foreign to have a digit in my mouth. It felt like trying to remember the sound of my grandpa's voice or what my first cat smelled like. Such is the death of Bert.