Context matters and, around here, we try to take it into consideration before we react even though we’re always ready to react.
Example: this weekend our home was ablaze – notably “AF” – with all 4 kids, all sitting around the table talking about video games and movies and the nonsense us parents barely listen to as we buzz around the kitchen cooking and feeding and cleaning and (FFS!) repeating.
Buzz, buzz, buzz and one of the boys says, “that guy was totally circumcised!”
Brakes lock, tires skid, record needles scrape and the wife and I stop motionless in our tracks.
Silence.
Our feet still firmly planted precisely where they stopped, we both rotate head and shoulders like Terminators, acquiring target. No breath or heartbeat was unrecorded from this moment moving forward.
Jaimi spoke first, calmly, “Are you sure you know what that word means?”
I jumped at my chance for the pause, because I didn’t want to be left out, “I’ll be happy to explain in surgical detail. I’m sure I can find examples that will scar you for life.”
The child currently locked in down-range target asked, “like when you get killed in a game, right?”
That’s when the eldest howled, “Do you mean ‘crucified’?” And erupted into a mocking roar, marred only by squeaky, raspy, pitchy puberty awkwardness.
Which is precisely when we pointed out that the eldest had zero clue what the word in question meant to begin with and he had no place making fun of someone with a better grasp of vocabulary than his own. That’s some bully shit right there.
We laughed and laughed and the Terminators continued cooking breakfast and cleaning and wondering why the kids wanted snacks after they just ate.
The End.