More Adventures with Word Boy

Vaughn and I were walking out of the grocery store where the retailers wisely plant all those eye catching money munchers that kids are so tempted by. These things are strategically placed, obviously, like their Family Friendly grocery checkout lines, where they have eliminated all the magazines at adult eyelevel and have increased the abundance of candy and other miscellaneous juvenile temptations at child eyelevel. This way, the adult rather than being occupied with reading about this week’s celebrity pregnancy/marriage/affair/rehab as they wait in a tortuously slow checkout line can instead be entertained by the child in front of them and/or their child’s candy meltdown or listen to the incessant sounds of “Can I have it, Mom, huh? Can I have it, Mom, huh? Can I have it, Mom, huh?” said over and over again in a droning, brain imploding whine. (Have you also noticed that all the diabetic-coma-inducing-psychedelically-colored cereals are all suspiciously at waist level?) Grocery stores are spiked with little kiddy mines, where an explosive temper tantrum can blow up out of seemingly nowhere, scattering mommies’ peace of minds throughout the store.

Sorry, I digress.

The hook and stuffed animal machine catches Vaughn’s eye.

“Mommy, what’s that?”

Now, I can see where this is going and not desiring to get waylaid in the store entrance/exit, decide to nip this in the bud, so I reply tersely,

“It’s a machine that takes your money,” continuing my race-walk out the door.

“WHAT?! Why that’s just ffffuuuunnn…ABSURD.”

I always have to find out the source of his word of the day, and so after a little inquiring I discover that this time it comes from school rather than his primary source of information—TV. He then proceeds to quote Webster’s Dictionary:

“It means to be funny to the point of being radaculunt.”

“Ridiculous?”

“Yes.”

This is another interesting phase in Vaughn’s development, and it’s one of the few that I’ve rather taken a liking to. Being a lover of words myself, it gives me no small pleasure to hear these unexpected, descriptive words coming out of his mouth, AND they’re being accurately used. It’s a little hard to get used to when the majority of the time what I hear coming out of his mouth is anything relating to the bodily functions and the parts from which they emit. Potty humor is timeless, at least to the under 10 set. And then, out of nowhere, he comes up with something that is not only accurate but insightful. Absurd indeed.