Family Wordplay

One of my favorite things in life is a great play on words. Honestly, I find few things as satisfying as when a situation presents itself and you can kill your companion, or a crowd, with a perfectly layered, be it clever or silly, response.

Actors need audiences, singers need stages, and I need witty conversation partners.

So, it is with a warm heart and gushing pride that I share a few instances of how my small brood of boys are starting to follow in the family passion.

The other day we drove by a Hooters restaurant and one of the boys asked what it was, unsure what kind of store would sell only owls. I explained that it was a restaurant that served lots of fried food and that it's hook was that all the waitressed had to wear super-short shorts and tiny t-shirts that showed their stomachs. The boys were aghast and perplexed as to why, why, i say?!, anyone would want to see that sort of thing. (Ah, the joys of pre-pubescence!)

Then CC says, "Mom, they should just call that place 'Ruders', because that is just plain RUDE."

And then, bless his clever little heart, the Animal pipes up from the back, "No, they should call it LEWDERS!"

Being only six-years-old, I'm not ready to give the kid a 100% credit on knowing what he was saying... he could've been saying "Looters!" merely for the rhyme. But possession is 9/10's of the law, so I am going to let my baby own it.

On another recent occasion, I was having a chat with the boys about being safe on the internet. We've covered the basics of never giving out personal information and the like before, but this talk was specifically about not opening things they download unless it is absolutely, positively the program or mod they intended to get. I also went over other ways that viruses can get injected in your computer, like emails sent with mysterious links from people they don't know, especially the ones that say things like, "LOL, did you see that photo someone posted of you? So funny!", links on sites that lead them to pop-up ads—NEVER click a link on a pop-up!!—etc., etc., the point being that you should never click on anything you're unsure about just because you're curious what will happen.

Destructo then chimes in, "Mom, instead of 'Curiosity killed the cat,' it should be, 'Curiosity killed the COMPUTER."

I'm not ready to say the my job is done here, but we are definitely on the way to some riveting games of Balderdash.