Well I'll Be Damned...

The other night as we were all in the car on our way to somewhere, J. was driving and he and I were squinting at road signs and muttering to each other as to what they said. N. pipes up from the back seat, reading the sign aloud correctly. "Wow." I say, impressed. "Good eyes!"

"Yeah!" She says proudly. "I've got GREAT eyes! I can see in the dark, just like a night creature! (from a book she owns on nocturnal animals) I'm like a bat, or an owl!"

*evil thought occurs*

"Oooh, so are you half bat, half owl?" I ask slyly, not daring to glance at J. for fear of bursting out laughing.

"Yeah!" excitedly from the back seat.

"So...that would make you (wait for it...) a bowel...?" A choked-off snort from the drivers' seat.

"YEAH!!! I'm a BOWEL!"

oh my god i'm going to hell...

But not alone. "So if you fly into a wall you're an Impacted Bowel, right?" J. asks her. God, I love that man.

"Ummm..." She isn't sure what 'impacted' means...

"And if you are in a bad mood, than you are an Irritable Bowel, right?" Again from the childs' loving father, who is openly snickering now as I stuff my fist in my mouth to keep from laughing out loud and carefully face forward so she can't see the way my eyes are watering.

"Yeah...but I'm not in a bad mood, I'm HAPPY!" She proceeds to make all kinds of happy bat/owl noises.

My turn again. I stop gasping for air long enough to say, "So you are NOISY Bowel!" before I resume laughing.

J. is making choking sounds and weaving a bit in the lane now.

N. laughs right along, making animal noises punctuated with the phrase, "I'm a Noisy Bowel!" Thankfully, we all find this funny, so we can laugh openly now. Pretty soon we are at our destination and have to ask her to calm down a bit.

This is exactly the kind of thing my Dad used to pull on us kids--sometimes it would take months, or even years for us to find out the truth behind one of his jokes. I'm not so sure that one or two aren't waiting in the wings for some horrible reveal one of these days...