Smothering....

According to Webster, this word means 1. to be overcome or die from lack of air; 2. to kill by depriving of air; 3. a confused multitude of things.

A strange word. What does it mean when someone says "Don't be smothering?" Does it mean he's confused by a multitude of things? No, I don't think that one's it. Does it mean I'm killing him because he can't breathe is own air? Think his own thoughts? Yes, that one must be it. I like the word "stifling" better. Means the same thing, but not to the point of death.

Smother, as in biscuits with gravy, is a matter of degrees. Your amount of gravy might be twice as much as I want. You might want your biscuits so smothered in gravy that you can't see the biscuit at all. Maybe I only want my biscuits smothered a little bit so that the flavor of the biscuits isn't stifled. And what if I change my mind? What if today I want so damn much smothering that you wonder how I'm going to handle it all and then tomorrow I want just a plain ol' biscuit with no smother or cover at all?

There are numbers between 1 and 100, there's attention and there's smothering. There's affection and there's clinging. There's love and there's obsession.