Support First Things by turning your adblocker off or by making a  donation. Thanks!

So here we are at my mother’s house, where we’ve been visiting with very great pleasure for the last ten days. We don’t have a television at home, so whenever we’re here, the children spend a lot of time catching up on all the PBS Kids programming they miss the rest of the year.

Today, on a program called Super Why, a character experienced a literary epiphany:


Hey! The Little Mermaid is different! Just like me!


You’re a nonconformist? So am I!

Anywaaaaaay . . .

Meanwhile, the Visiting Graduate Student and the dog are holding things together at our house, after a fashion. The dog has found a hole in the fence and started harassing a particular Yorkshire terrier which passes the house each morning, perhaps under the impression that the other dog is a squirrel which refuses to be treed. Also, in our absence, the VGS has been drinking a lot of Dr. Pepper. He goes across the street to the community college, where there are vending machines, and this morning, when he went for his breakfast Dr. Pepper, a class was in session. This was notable, he said, because although people come and go from this facility at all hours of the day and night, he has never actually encountered a class going on. On his way out, he paused to listen, and he overheard the following:



Now, there is nothin’ WRONG . . . with ADMITTIN’ . . . that you didn’t know the DIFFERENCE . . . between “ACCEPT” and “EXCEPT.”


Immediately he got home, the VGS called to tell me about it.

“Don’t people learn these things in first grade?” he asked.

Well, I said, I think in first grade everyone starts learning about different. By the time you get to college, you’re finally ready to learn about different words.

Speaking of words, this Bible study reference collection is still available on eBay.

I’ve never seen anything categorized as “Religious/Tropical” before. That’s different, too.

So different I have no idea what to rate or how to rate it. Again.


Comments are visible to subscribers only. Log in or subscribe to join the conversation.

Tags

Loading...

Filter First Thoughts Posts

Related Articles