Troubles with the English Language

Here’s the latest for those of you following the antics of Kaptain Katie.

She and I went to pick up my grandmother to bring her to our house for Thanksgiving. Since the temperature was still in the 70’s and 80’s everyday, she had on flip-flops (The Katie Footwear of Choice). She showed me the perfectly round, nickel-sized scab on the top of each foot.

“You know how rock stars slide across the floor with their guitars?” she said. “I guess you shouldn’t do that without your socks on.” She’d evidently tried it and had the carpet burn scabs to show for it.

I laughed and said the first thing that popped into my head. (I know that surprises you.) “It looks like you have stigmata,” I told her.

“What’s that?”

I immediately regretted saying it. Katie was leaving that evening to spend the rest of the holiday one of her grandmothers. The one who is the devout Catholic.

I explained what stigmata is. Katie found it hilarious that her wounds resembled those of Christ and I was worried she would repeat this bit of wit to the grandmother. Turns out, I needn’t have worried. We drove on another mile or so, when Katie began to chuckle.

“I’ve never had mono,” she said. “But now I have stick-mono!”


When I got home from work last Friday, Katie met me at the door.

“Daddy took me to ‘It’s a Girl Thing’!” she gushed. It’s a Girl Thing is a store located on the property of a seed company down the road from us. Evidently the owner’s wife wanted a corner of the industrial lot to house her own shop. So, right there amidst the huge semi-truck trailers of various kinds of cottonseed, the silos, and the warehouse, is her little store. Its full of all things frou-frou and wild. Katie loved it.

“They had a really cool belt. I need it to wear to the sympathy!”

“Do what?!”

“My class is going to the sympathy ‘cause Mrs. Brown is going to be in it. I need the belt to wear to the sympathy.”

Jackson intervened: “Sym-pha-ny, Katie. Symphany.”

I once heard the Fake Cow City is the smallest city in the U.S. to have a symphony. I don’t know if that is still true or not. But it will forever be known as the Sympathy at our house.