Four-Letter Words

One day, I was over at my brother and sister-in-law’s place, visiting my niece and nephews. They were twelve, ten, and four years old. My sister-in-law was chatty, shopaholic, gossipy sort who was usually always looking around when sharing verbally. So it wasn’t a surprise to anyone but her when her children would repeat certain words or phrases she commonly used, as kids do. It was always followed by an entertaining lashing-out at them to “watch your mouth!” That would immediately be followed by “You said it fi rst!” On this particular day, my sister-in-law said they were planning to go to the mall and asked if i wanted t come along. We piled in the van, with my niece and nephews. My sister-in-law began telling me about some of the stores she wanted to visit and some of the deals she had found over the years, especially for the kids’ school years and Christmas. Around this time, my nephew piped up and declared, “I know mom’s favorite four-letter word is!” Thinking he was going to shout out one of his mothers favorite “colorful” words, we all stopped talking and chanted, “no, no, no!” But he didn’t disappoint when he yelled out “sale!” That was the greatest laugh of the day. Not only was it great jab at his mom’s obsessive shopping, but a jab at all of us for assuming the worst.