The Slice: Darned kids can be such stinkers

Let’s start with stories about parents learning that their children had picked up some questionable language.

“Many years ago, my 6-year-old came in from playing and tattled that his 4-year-old brother was outside shouting the f-word,” wrote Mary Testa-Smith. “I was on my last nerve and overreacted.”

She ordered the younger boy inside. “I ranted at him about the inappropriate language, tried to get him to say the word down the toilet so we could flush it away, et cetera.”

Then she banished him to his room.

A few moments later, she found his older brother, the tattler, sitting on the couch. His eyes were wide.

Speaking in a whisper, he said, “I didn’t know ‘fart’ was such a bad word.”

When Marilyn Keller’s middle daughter, Laurin, was 4 1/2, the little girl had been suffering from a bad head cold. So after Keller woke her up one morning, she asked Laurin how she was feeling.

“She looked at me with a very serious look on her face and said, ‘Mom, I feel damn good.’ “

When the child saw the surprised look on her mother’s face, she flashed an impish grin. “I’ve always wanted to say that,” she said.

And when Mary Weller Souza’s nephew was quite young, he learned that if you put up only your middle finger, you get lots of attention. He realized it was the gesture equivalent of an off-color expression.

“His parents tried to stop it by ignoring it and telling him it didn’t mean a bad word,” wrote Souza.

Now fast-forward to the baptism of this kid’s baby cousin. “My nephew walked right up to the priest at the altar with his middle finger raised, repeating the phrase ‘This doesn’t mean a bad word.’ “

“Ifs, ands or butts: Last weekend’s question about mooning fetched several stories of people expressing themselves by baring their backsides in the direction of strangers. Apparently this brand of body language is especially popular on this area’s lakes.

For instance, Bill Schumacker shared a story about a guy on the back of a personal watercraft mooning a cruise boat last weekend.

So why do people do this? Here are three theories.

1. Some regard pulling their pants down as an eloquent rebuke of stifling social mores.

2. Some are drunk and stupid.

3. People will keep doing it until it stops getting a laugh.

“The name of which comic-book high school would be perfect for an actual Inland Northwest institution of learning: Riverdale High, Smallville High, Midtown High.

“Warm-up question: What’s your experience with losing at romance and then having broken-heart songs haunt you at seemingly every turn?

“Today’s Slice question: Who holds the local record for the most time spent gazing at a lake without ever setting foot in the water?