Choice Words

Gabriel to Ephraim: Let’s play hide and seek.

Ephraim: Oh-tay.

Gabriel: You count. (thinks) Count to one.

Ephraim: One.

Gabriel: (tries to hide but sighs) Count to two.

Ephraim: Two.

Gabriel gives up and runs to hide around the corner.

Ephraim: “One, two, free, ready not, here tum! … Hmmm, where he be?”

Gabriel and Ephraim spent the weekend with their dad while I went away to the Girl Scout Alumnae relaxation weekend. Here is the story I heard.

Ephraim brought a set of dogtags over to me and asked, "This say, dad?" I told him it said "Sega dot com" (they were from the Dreamcast release party). He got a horrified look on his face and said "Sega dot konk? Mom say konk bad word!" and then he walked away hanging his head in disappointment. As background, the kids don't KNOW bad words. So they had made up a few that they say at each other with such vitriol that they SOUND like bad words. We tell them to "say nice things please" when they do that, but apparently at some point we implied that they were actual bad words. And later that day, Ephraim justified his use of "konk konk" because I "used" the word earlier. "Da, you say konk konk," he says, holding up the dogtags.