Son finds use for seldom used words

You know the old cliché of boys hiding under their covers in bed, reading comic books with a flashlight.

Well, I think my son might be doing that. But I’m afraid to pull the covers back because of what I might find him reading. I’m a bit worried that I might catch him reading  (are you sitting down?) a thesaurus.

I don’t suspect this because he seems to be lacking sleep or anything. I mean, normally I don’t make him go to bed until the late movie is over anyway.

Nor is he putting on a display of big six-syllable words.

Nope. Instead, he finds a way to employ some seldom-used words in rather unique ways.

For example, just a few weeks ago we were watching some Arena Football on TV. Yes, I understand subjecting him to non REAL football could be part of the problem. But as my grandmother would have said, Arena Football beats NO football all to pieces.

So we’re sitting there watching the game (well, I was watching the game. I think he was reading a book on physics or something). He asked me what the score was.

Now, I understand that they do, in fact, keep score, in Arena Football. But I was really just watching just to be watching football. In fact, I barely even knew who was playing, much less who was winning. But I looked at the score on the screen and told him.

His reply? “Oh, no. I bet the losing team is heartstricken?”

Uh? Heartstricken?

My first thought was that I need to ban him from watching Lifetime movies with me anymore.

My second thought was that I’m not sure that the players in Arena Football keep up with the score much more than I do.

Ok, so maybe the players do get a bit down after a loss. But I’ve got a feeling that by the time they’ve showered and cleaned up, they’ve probably shaken off any strickeness of the heart by the time. In fact, they’re probably ready to grab a beer and relax for a bit.

But his take on football doesn’t stop there. Last night, I was watching some of the opening games of the college football season. I don’t really like any of the teams that were playing, but I think it’s a law or something that when there’s football on TV, then your TV has to be turned to football. Or maybe it’s in the constitution or some such document.

Anyway, I had on the game between South Carolina and Texas A&M, and I’m thinking how great it is to have football back after so many months away.

It was at this point my son turns to me and says, “I don’t really like college football all that much.” When I asked him why not, he said, “I don’t like all the hoopla surrounding it.”

All the hoopla surrounding it . . . ?

Ok, I’ll admit that if Howard Cosell and Hillary Clinton had a kid together, my son might be him. But using the word “hoopla”? Has it come to that?

I think my son’s vocabulary can best be summed up with this story. As we were leaving my office the other day, my son was carrying his backpack over his shoulder, but was carrying a book he was reading in his hand. As we left, someone asked him if the book was good. His reply?

“I’m really not sure yet. I’m just in the wee pages.”

The wee pages? What is he doing, spending his nights flying to Scotland after I go to sleep. “Ah, lad, tis a good book so far, but I find myself only in the wee pages.”

The co-worker said that wasn’t a word you hear very often. “Now,” I said, “you understand my life.”

That experience led me to only one conclusion. I need to buy that boy some comic books!