My Welcome Back from College
“Balls.” I nearly choked on my iced tea. Did Mom really just say that? Everyone acted as if nothing had happened; they continued their activities unfazed: AJ gnawed on his frozen pizza, Lizzy painted her nails, Dad sorted recyclables. Was I really the only one freaking out over this? Mom, our mother, dared to utter the word “balls.” Oh. My. Gosh. What’s wrong with these people?
After regaining some composure, I asked her about it. Maybe I had made a mistake. “Balls” rhymes with a lot of things, right? Yeah. Must be. Mothers just don’t say such things. That was something high school boys etched into the desks during health class and something my minivan-driving, PB&J-making mom did not.
“Mom, uh, what’d you just say?”
“‘Balls.’” So nonchalant. So completely wrong in every possible way.
No. No way was she going to get off so easily.
“Why?”
Just like how I remembered before leaving for college, she gave me a solid answer.
“AJ’s been going around the house saying it, so we all started saying it. One time, we were sitting at the breakfast bar, and I wanted to be funny. When AJ said ‘balls,’ I said, ‘In my mouth.’ Brian was like, ‘Ew! Mom, no! It’s ‘in your mouth.’ So now I say that instead. But yeah, we all say it whenever.”
Well alright then. Guess whose home vocabulary just got one word bigger?
