Back when Kiddo#1 was just a tiny baby, I’d sing him rude songs to put him to sleep. He was only a month or so old, and he didn’t care whether I sang Frere Jacques or We’re All Here To Drink The Whiskey, so why not sing whichever came to mind? I was sleep-deprived and new to the whole mom-thing. By the time he grew old enough to understand me, I’d switched to The Alphabet Song and other G-rated fare.
Other than the time I sang the Bourbon song, and he repeated it that night. It’s a good thing my Patient Husband is so Patient.
We’ve entered a new realm, though. I now have to watch what I say rather than just slipping in puns and satiric remarks.
Kiddo#1 said something about studying Ancient Greece in school. When he mentioned Socrates, I replied with “So-Crates.”
My Patient Husband laughed. I laughed.
A full minute of silence later, Kiddo#1 said in a voice tinged with horror, “Mom, when a Greek name ends in ES, it’s pronounced ‘ease’.”
I said, “No!” and laughed, and he said, even more worried, “Didn’t you know that?”
I explained to him about fine film-making and Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and how the two guys always said the name as “So-Crates” and that it was, you know, funny. He could groove to that: in his mind stupidity is a sin but deliberate stupidity, rather than becoming a mortal sin, is actually fine.
My husband said something about other names that were similar, like Sophocles and Euripedes, and that’s when I got myself in trouble and said “Testikles.”
(Keeping in mind that, as Gary Corby points out — or maybe it should be Gary Korby — all these names are more properly written with a K. But if you swap in an incorrect C…well…)
Back when I was in college, my friend Jenny invented a boyfriend named Testikles Pook. She’s immortalized in my heart because whenever I hear a name ending in “ease” I immediately think of Mr. Pook, and now you will too. Thank me later.
Even as the word came out of my mouth, my Patient Husband rolled his eyes, but Kiddo#1 laughed out loud. And that’s when I realized my foul mouth had gotten me in trouble. Or, more accurately, I’d gotten myself in trouble.
Later I said, “I can’t believe he caught that,” and the Kiddo called from two rooms away, “Of course I caught that! I wish I hadn’t!”
I guess your mom isn’t supposed to tell off-color jokes. Oh well. I’ve entered that season of my life where I need to be careful about such things.
HAHAHA!! Try being the Mom walking your four year old into PreK (at Catholic school, no less) as she sings “Rye whiskey, rye whiskey, rye whiskey I cry, if I don’t get rye whiskey, well I think I may die.” Yeah. Thankfully I’ve since gotten her to move on to The Hockey Song.
ROTFLOL! That’s awesome!
Kiddo#1, still of a tender enough age to sit in the rack of the grocery store cart, looked at me once and sang,
“For the life of me
I cannot believe
we’d ever die for these sins.
We were merely freshmen.”
I groaned. They’re never listening until you wish they weren’t.
Hey, it’s better quality ribald humour than they hear in the playground.
Yeah, but it’s his MOM! How embarrassing. LOL!
Forget out of the mouth of babes. How about the ears? Thanks for the chuckle.
I’m totally calling a character Testikles if I ever get a chance. Unfortunately it wasn’t an ancient Greek name – I have an extensive database and I just searched it very carefully – but I can imagine someone who is pretending to be Greek using it by mistake.
If it’s any compensation, I used to sing Maxwell’s Silver Hammer by Paul McCartney to my daughters when they were toddlers. The song’s about a mass murderer. People looked at me somewhat askance, but the girls loved it because it sounds like a nursery rhyme. I had to stop when I noticed they began to recognize the words.
Funny! I’ll have to tell my husband that one!
Then there is the old joke, “Eurpides pants, Eumendides pants”.