One of my mom’s favorite stories to tell is about the day I came home from kindergarten and announced, “Pointing with your middle finger is against the school rules.”
Most moms would probably reply, “Good to know! It certainly should be.” But my mom, my mom is not like most moms. My mom asks, “Why do you think that is, Jaimie?”
I grimace matter-of-factly, and with a knowing shake of my head reply, “I don’t know, it just is.”
Of course I did in fact find out the origin of this rule despite my secluded existence as a Child of the Redwoods. Probably not long after that conversation, I was sitting in the car on a rainy day in Scotts Valley, reciting various words to the tune of a catchy song I’d learned. It went: Truck Truck Bo Buck, Banana Fana Fo… you get the gist. That was when I found out about the F word. My mom told me it meant, and I quote: Making love in a bad way.
A few years later I have a German au-pair that tells us we can point with our middle fingers, as long as we only point at the ground. This is fun and takes the thrill out of it being banned entirely.
Then years go by and now my own son is in kindergarten.
On Halloween, Papa and I are happily reminiscing about last year and the kid who showed-up on our doorstep dressed as a giant middle finger. It was a fairly high quality costume (at least he hadn’t dressed-up “as himself”). If memory serves, I may have shouted Middle Finger off our porch and thrown a piece of candy or two as he escaped with his finger between his legs. I mean, c’mon, there are little kids here.
Of course this story then prompts Jake to ask the question, “Why was he dressed as a middle finger?” And now I’ve walked right into introducing him to school rules I’m sure he just hasn’t heard of yet.
Then a week passes by and the boys are in the tub. Jake asks, “Mom, what’s the F word?”
“Uh, where did you hear that?”
“Some big kids at school were talking about it.”
“Well, it’s pretty much the naughtiest word you can say so… I can’t really say it to you.” And your brother relishes saying everything he knows he’s not allowed to say which is a genetic deficiency I am positive he has inherited from Grandma.
“Well, can you tell me the next letter after F?”
“It’s U.”
Now he just looks puzzled. And as someone who’s last name starts with F-U-C… I have a feeling we’ll be revisiting this conversation shortly.