Words: Mindf*&k of a Five-Year-Old.

I am five years old, sitting quietly in the backseat of 'Jenny', the gunmetal grey '87 Camry (we are rather Toyota loyal, aren't we?). My mother is driving. We're headed down Lake City Way towards home, we've just passed Deja Vu (which is another blogpost entirely) when mom cranes her head around to me at a stoplight.

She begins to explain, completely straight faced, that 'they' (who? Oh...just nonspecific powers greater than ourselves) have decided to change the meanings of many words. What? She goes on...from now on, the words I HAD a concept for would no longer mean or stand for what they'd meant or stood for yesterday. I don't remember if she gave examples or not, but I do remember the panic that ensued internally for the next few hours...

As a small child I immediately began to worry. I started with my own example, I thought about a sandy beach and a bowl of soup. What if soup means sand and sand means soup and I don't know it and therefore nobody knows what I'm trying to say when I'm talking?!

I thought further about soup and sand...and how sand would make really gross, gritty soup and soupy sand would really just defeat the purpose of whatever I was supposed to call that junk at the beach! We got home and I was quiet for hours, pondering the possibilities...more like just being terrified to open my mouth.

My mother insists to this day that she was just playing around, just enhancing my higher-level thinking skills. Perhaps just trying to get some peace and quiet (come on, those of you who know me wouldn't BLAME her in the least)?? Whatever it was, I find it hilarious.