Go Ask Your Father: Hotels, Hot Chocolate, Scramming, and Pop

Crash’s team, The Smashers, won their first game last night. This brings their record to 1-4. However, they are undefeated on the road. We had spent two days practicing his swing so he wouldn’t be so nervous come game time. He connected with a few but they all went foul. He ending up striking out his first time up. After that the rest of his at bats ended up being walks. Then came a big play.

Crash was on first and the boy up to bat nailed it to left field. Crash took second base with no problem so Coach waved him to third. He got there standing and Coach took a risk and sent him for home. The short stop threw it to the catcher, Crash slid the best slide he could slide but was tagged out. He came up all smiles. And so did I.

Why is called a hotel? A ho and a tell.

I couldn’t answer this question until I a) stopped laughing and b) looked it up. Word origin isn’t my strong suit. I’m lucky if I can spell it corectly (intentional typo, get it? It was funnier in my head.). When your five year old is a chatterbox in the backseat and starts talking about hos and what they tell, you know you know you’ve just been handed blog material on a silver platter. This word gets traced back to my early years in elementary school also known as the mid 1700’s. It is derived of the French word hôtel, which is derived from the Old French word (as if 1700 wasn’t old) hostel. It was also used in Middle English (not to be confused with Middle Earth). Middle English occurred during my rebellious toddler years between circa 1150 to circa 1470. To go back even futher,  hostel is derived from medieval Latin hospitale. I don’t know Latin, but I sure know what that word looks like.

Can you cook me some hot chocolate, si vous plait?

Speaking of in French, there it is. Si vous plait – meaning “please” and pronounced see voo play (or at least how I say it). I only speak Americanese. Bang wanted some hot chocolate. So what if it was July. He was kind enough pardon his French. But cook it? Sure, if pushing the button on the Keurig to pour hot water into a cup of hot chocolate powder counts as cooking, I’m Chef Boyardee. Bon appetit!

What’s a scram?

This word is still in its infancy because it only dates back to the early 1900’s. It’s what you do when mom and dad need a few minutes without you kids. I love my kids dearly. Y’all know that. They are to me what the One Ring to Rule Them All is to Smeagol. Perhaps Smeagol looks the way he does because he didn’t get a moments peace from his energy siphoning children. He lived before this word was created so he had no way to tell his kids to scram and give him a few moments peace. Look what happened to him! In his defence, he does have more hair than me.

Why is pop hot?

Pop. Soda pop. Soda. Cola. Soft drink. Fizz. Whatever name call it, my kids think it’s hot. Those delicious bubbles tingle their tongue and they think it’s because it’s burning. Crash used to tell us he doesn’t like pop because it’s too spicy. At 9 years old he still doesn’t like it and I’m okay with that. Bang, however, loves it regardless of how hot he thinks it might be. Those bubbles are from the carbonation, or carbon dioxide gas. It’s kept in the drink with pressure and once the pressure is released once you open the bottle and up comes tingles. I’m going to kick the habit. I would love to just stop drinking it but that caffeine and sugar combo speaks to me like Obi Wan after he’s crossed over. Obi Wan’s use the force gets roughly translated to drink the Coke. And Old Ben Kenobi is never wrong.