What I've Been Reading Instead of Cleaning My House

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

School Daze

Yesterday I was helping out at my kids' school and after discussing the upcoming Winter Olympics with a group of sixth graders, one especially odd girl came up to me and said:

"I have a new word I like to say. Gigolo! Gigolo, gigolo, gigolo. Doesn't that sound delicious? Gigolo."

I cautioned her that maybe that wasn't an appropriate word to say, especially at school. The girl had no idea why. I tried to explain to her what it meant (which was probably worse than her actually saying it), but she still didn't quite get it. She thought she had made the word up. Her face then brightened to a smile and she said:

"I know! Instead of gigolo, I'll say (insert very non-PC racial epithet here)! That's a good word."

I again told her that it was NOT a good word (and didn't explain why just in case she decided she WOULD like to use that word correctly).

Finally, she decided that "Jell-O" would be her new word of choice.

I agreed. After all, there's always room for Jell-O.

7 comments:

Geo said...

*rimshot*

Camille said...

Wow. Jell-O sounds really good to me right now. Is there such a thing as local organic Jell-O?

Lois said...

GEO -- our old neighbors had an art show where the artwork consisted of various parts of a joke and when you got to the punchline painting there was a guy waiting there with a drum to the the "rimshot" after you read it. Too funny.

CAMILLE -- I REALLY don't think you want organic Jell-O. You do know it's made from cow hooves, don't you? Of course, you can get vegan jello from Asian markets (it's made from agar or seaweed or something like that).

Heidi said...

I'm glad there is someone out there keeping our kids vocabularies in check. Good work.

Hilda said...

Just as well you helped that girl out! Jell-o brand will be happy with her new choice of word.

Nigel said...

Gigolos with shredded carrots--yum.

Lois said...

HEIDI -- yes, I'm the vocab cop.

HILDA -- I agree, "Jell-O" is much better.

Ooh, I've gone international! Too bad my Chinese is so bad.

NIGEL -- don't forget the pineapple chunks!