Friday morning brought storms to to the Tennessee Valley, and the subsequent patio pitter-patter prompted a grin-induced memory ~
Because kids do say the darndest things and they don’t have a filter for what’s appropriate to repeat in public, as a mom sometimes I’ve been humbled to the ground, desperately searching for a boulder under which I could slither to hide until the end of time.
Like once after the kids went swimming.
A group of friends were standing around, waiting on our children to finish showering. It made little sense if you tried to analyze it, but their favorite time to shower was after they had been wet in a pool for three hours; I suppose it had something to do with the freedom from mom not supervising them like bath time at home. The showers were gender delineated and I couldn’t “help” the boys.
Done, my seven-year-old walked over to the group of moms I was with. As he toweled his hair, he excitedly exclaimed (loud enough for all to hear), “It felt like hell in there!”
My jaw dropped; I looked at my friend T.J., then back at my son and said, “Excuse me?!” to which he repeated even more loudly, “IT FELT LIKE HELL IN THERE!” and I froze in my tracks. That line was delivered with the emphasis and intonation of an adult, perfectly expressed the way I would’ve said it had I just stepped out of a too hot shower.
I turned to him, grasping for the best way to address the words now dangling in mid-air; other mothers were watching me to see how I responded.
“T h o m a s…” I began, considering whether or not just to cram a bar of Ivory in his mouth. “That is not how a first grader is supposed to talk…” came the preachy next mother line.
Unrepentant, he looked at me with confusion masking his face; how could he not know what he said was wrong? Had we been that poor of an example??
“But, Mom,” he continued. “The water DID feel like little balls of hail beating down on my back…” and it dawned on me he wasn’t streaming juvenile expletives at all.
He’s just Southern.
Photo credit: paf_friz on Flickr
Oh goodness!! LMAO!! I have a story like that too, if I have time I’ll blog it.
ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is HYSTERICAL!!!!!! I absolutely LOVE it! This reminds me of the time I asked Funny Girl to give me a word that rhymed with “ditch” and she started rattling off “words” at lightning speed: litch, fitch, mitch, bit#@…need I say more? 😉
For the record, Doug would have TOTALLY understood him – (he says things like “HEEL” for “HILL”).
That might be the correct answer for a lot of things: “He’s just Southern”
Hail/hell? WTH? 😀 I have the hardest time with the word “wash.” For all my life, we said “worsh.” My kids have corrected me so much that I can say it correctly now but I always think of it as I’m saying it. It’s hard to change years of a bad habit.
We have had that same issue with “What in the sam hill are you doing (were you thinking)” , coming out as “What in the sam hell…”!!
Classic. Thanks for sharing that!
If he was saying “hail” and you heard “hell”, wouldn’t that be because *you* are Southern?
priceless. And you remembered it. I’ve lost so many of the funny things from my head.
Have a very happy Mother’s Day, Robin. :~D
Off topic: Stop by my place when you get a chance… I’ve quoted you. :~D
Oh. My. Word.
Thank you for the belly laugh. I will be telling this story to my mother-in-law at our brunch this morning.
Love this!
Love it!! We’ve had a number of those types of incidents (not always just kids) and not even southern. LOL!! 😀
Oh my goodness! My cousins from Mississippi pronounce it that way, too! What a riot! I’m from Oregon – so yeah – I say HAAAAIIIL. They say HAELL. Funny how huge a difference it makes your whole accent and dialect, huh?!
Oh my, this is hilarious! Being Southern I have to repeat a lot, they just don’t get it the first time around!
joy c. at grannymountain
I love it. I Love It!!
Hilarious!
Reminds me of a story my Grandmama used to tell all the time. When she and her sister were little girls they were out in their garden using various gardening tools. Her sister called her a name and she retorted “Well, you’re just a hoer!” Their nanny said, “Miss Doyle, you can’t call her that!” She said, “Why? She’s hoein’ ain’t she?” When you’re Southern, hoer and whore sound a whole lot alike. She was from Tennessee too! 🙂
Seein’ how I’m “this” far behind in commenting back, have you blogged your
story?? Love that you gotta laugh outta this one 🙂
Did you not know you were setting yourself up for that one? One day FG is
going to say something like that again, totally know what it means, but act
perfectly innocent. I can just feel it ;).