'Cuz That's The Kind of Geeks We Are...

Sunday afternoon, Daughter-Only, Son-Two, Hubby and I were playing a game of Carroms. The game, for the uninitiated (which is practically everyone I've ever met--lots of people have seen the board--it's a pretty common prop in TV shows, etc--but no one I've ever met has played the game), involves shooting rings into pockets on a board that looks like this:

I've never actually done more than browse the rule book that comes with the board since my grandfather taught me to play before I was old enough to remember being taught--we play by his rules, which are no doubt "house" rules and would vary at least slightly from the rules other people use (people who, for instance, read and follow the rule book).

However, in no version of the game could I imagine a dictionary being consulted. Until Sunday that is--when we did in fact have to stop midgame to consult a dictionary to settle a debate that threatened to rage out of control.

Daughter-Only had tied her "shooter" on to the hood string of her hoodie sweatshirt and couldn't figure out where it was. Hubby pointed it out and rolled his eyes saying, "I was really hoping that no daughter of mine would turn out to be a bimbo."

I said that I thought the qualifications for bimbohood involved more than mere airheadedness and I thought Daughter-Only was pretty safe in the "other areas" of bimbohood, at least for the moment.

Hubby raised an eyebrow (he's very good at the one eyebrow raising thing, but I think he should be careful because one of his eyebrows is going to wear out way sooner than the other), not understanding what I was getting at so I said, "Usually when someone uses the word 'bimbo,' they're talking about more than just a woman's brains. Most people mean someone dippy and usually big-busted and someone who's a little promiscuous."

There ensued a heated discussion about whether sluttiness was actually a common connotation of the word "bimbo." Finally, I looked at Daughter-Only and said, "Grab the dictionary."

Daughter-Only read aloud for everyone's benefit: "bimbo: informal, derogatory an attractive but empty-headed young woman, esp. one perceived as a willing sex object."

Score!

Right?

Um, no, because, according to Hubby "especially doesn't mean exclusively."

No, especially means especially--which means that more people than not are implying (and understanding) a side of sleaziness with the order of airheadedness that comes with being a bimbo.

I gave up and just concentrated on whipping his butt on the Carrom board.

And, While You're At It, How Many Licks Does It Take To Get To The Tootsie Roll Center Of A Tootsie Pop?

Over the weekend, the tattered remnants of my seventh grade yearbook surfaced, much to the amusement of Daughter-Only and Oldest Niece, daughter of Little Sister.

The girls were baffled by the clothing "styles" (or lack thereof) and the last names--there was a high concentration of German-sounding names like Shmeckenbecker and Fenstermacher, names that make you spit a little if you're saying them right. They were reading through different names and Oldest Niece said, "T. Fairchild.*"

I said, "Let me tell you a little something about 'T. Fairchild.' 'T. Fairchild' rode our bus and she sold your mother's phone number to some boys who wanted it."

Oldest Niece's eyes widened and her mouth even dropped open a little. Was Oldest Niece appalled by this betrayal of her mother's friendship? Was she horrified that anyone could stoop that low? Not exactly.

"Wow...How many boys paid for my mother's phone number?"

Alas, I was unable to remember the exact details of the financial transactions carried out by T. Fairchild. I vaguely remember something about 80 cents, but did T. Fairchild charge one boy 80 cents? Or did she charge two boys 40 cents? Hell, maybe she charged 8 boys 10 cents...

Little Sister, if you're reading this, please tell us, how many boys did pay for your phone number? The world--and your 15-year-old daughter--want to know.

*"T. Fairchild" is not an attempt to protect the identity of the phone-number-selling guilty party in this story. It is the way the names were actually listed in the yearbook and that's how we referred to her during the conversation on Saturday. T. Fairchild's first name is Teresa--I'd sell you her phone number, too, if I had it.

Huh? (New and, If Not Improved, At Least Longer and More Pointless...)

While going through the basket of clean laundry that sits at the end of our bed (in eternal (but eternally unfulfilled) optimism that it might actually be put away), Hubby accuses, "You used one of my socks out of context!"

This is what I'm up against.

[Update:] This is the way my brain works--after Hubby made that comment on Friday morning, my brain kept chasing its own tail about what the real "context" of a sock was. Hubby meant that I had used one of his socks with a sock from a different pair, thereby leaving an unmated sock in the basket.

(It is way more important to one of us than the other that our socks be mated. I've always lived by Steven Wright's philosophy in the sock department--he doesn't go by color, he goes by thickness except in my case, since 98% of the socks in our house are white and color isn't an issue, I don't go by style, length,ownership, or even thickness, but by availability, which means I'm often wearing a girl's ankle sock that's been widowed in a freak accident involving teething puppies and a men's crew sock with a stretched out top that flops against my calf like a partially shed skin.

I do try to avoid Hubby's socks and I do try to go for everyone else's socks that are worn out or already mismatched--in other words I try to go for the socks that have been abandoned and rejected by the rest of the family (and thus less likely to be missed, or in Hubby's case desperately pined for). If I am reduced for whatever reason (pick one: a) laziness, b) disorganization, c) desperation, and d) extreme tardiness brought on by all of the above) to grabbing Hubby's socks, I am always, always careful to take a matched set both because I know it ruins his whole day to have a single in a basketful of pairs and because if I take a pair, I am way less likely to be "caught" and have to listen to him rant about "people" (by which he means me) "stealing" (by which he means borrowing--no he probably does mean stealing, but really it's just borrowing) his socks (by which he means his socks).

What happens, though, is that regardless of my stealthy, pairs-only sock stealing, and regardless of whether I've actually stolen any of his socks or not, I still have to listen to him rant about missing socks, which he's always convinced have been stolen, not merely misplaced in the dryer or wherever it is they disappear to by the millions in "normal" (by which I mean not my own) households. Despite his deep-seated conviction, I had not stolen/borrowed a single (or pair of) sock(s) in several weeks prior to the morning in question. And speaking of the morning in question, let's close these parentheses and get on with the brain-chasing-tail portion of our post.)

I'm not sure what you would call using a sock without its mate (On one of its trips around the futile tail chase, my brain observed that socks--especially those purchased in multipacks--are actually polygamists and can be mated with any other sock from their pack as well as with any other sock from any other pack of the same style/brand/size. Socks are the Casanovas of the clothing world, but again, I've wandered from the original point which was:) I'm not sure what you would call using a sock without (one of) its mate(s)--mismatching, misusing, misappropriating or (to use some letter of the alphabet other than "m") stealing a single, but whatever you call it, I'm pretty sure that using a sock "out of context" must mean something entirely different than merely pairing it with the "wrong" sock. (Right or wrong sock is a gray area if you ask me and not merely because most of the once white socks that comprise 98% of our household's sock inventory have been overworn and underwashed to varying shades of that color.)

To the extent that a sock (or socks, though for the purposes of our argument, it seems more accurate to deal with the sock on an individual basis) can be said to have a context, I'm pretty sure putting it on a foot is precisely the context in which a sock belongs. Now, if you were to use the sock, say, as a mitten, that might be a little out of context. And if you were to mix a martini (shaken or stirred) in a sock--an enterprise that would no doubt fail in a spectacular fashion, particularly if you were using one of our very off-white socks--that would be using a sock extremely out of context.

When it comes to the expression "Put a sock in it." we are once again in a gray area. Is this proper sock context or not? I'm not sure, why don't I try it and find out?

I Don't Really Miss The Poopcentric Conversations

Recent events have had me yearning for the simpler (in my memory at least) times, when the kids were younger and the biggest crisis we seemed to face was what to tell them about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. An evening spent one-on-one with Other Kid, who's about to turn six (SIX!!!!) reminded me that those long lost days had some pitfalls of their own.

For one thing, he requires constant entertaining--even though tonight my contribution consisted mainly of slouching back on the couch while he orchestrated a Beanie Baby attack on my head, it seemed endless and exhausting. For another, the conversation often leaves much to be desired.

At one point, trying to distract him from beating me in the face with a stuffed (but surprisingly firm) anteater, I said, "Hey, I heard you went to Ponderosa for dinner."

His response--which he gave all in one very long breath--was, "Oh yeah, and I ate everything they had there, they have nothing left, ha ha, tricked ya', I couldn't really do that, my stomach isn't big enough, but for such a small butt crack, I sure can poop big turds."

Yeah, I'm not missing those days so much anymore.

Perfect Post for August: Perspective

As I've hinted, implied and outright whined about here lately, I have been in the middle of one crisis after another for what feels like months. Even in the midst of all the blubbering, I try to tell myself that lots and lots of people have it way worse than me and this is absolutely true.

Perhaps it is the petulant child in me that doesn't find much comfort in that thought.

In any case, when I found 30 Days Is Just 1,440 Back-to-Back Episodes of DragonTales over at Looky, Daddy, I couldn't help thinking that the Universe was trying to send me a message that it's tried to send me a bazzillion times before. Everything's relative.

So, for the friendly, timely and entertaining reminder, here's my button:



And, The Dad, it's all yours!

See other winners at Suburban Turmoil and Petroville.