What the Hell is the Glue Stick Doing on the table?

So we are sitting around eating our daily dinner gruel and I ask, rhetorically, just what in the heck was going on in someones head when they did this or that earlier in the day. Of course, most of my dinner questions are rhetorical what with the son interrupting, the daughter working on her gravity and velocity testing as she clears the food and drink off her highchair top with a rapid back and forth motion and the husband trying to duck the food coming at him while he fondly reminisces about those days gone by before he turned 40 last week and still had the ability to duck fast enough to avoid the food's impact.

So, I'm testing the conversational listening by verbalizing my musings on the topic of two trains leaving the station at the same time, one going 35 mph and the other going 55 mph, same track, both with naked people driving them and what would happen at the point of impact considering they were being driven by naked people, and I didn't get any feedback. Nada. Nothing. Not a word.

So then I add "And what the heck were they thinking being naked given it could be a coal powered train and wouldn't that be a bit risky if embers were floating around" and "ding, ding, ding", I get some attention from the son. Went something like, "MOMMY, you just said a bad word." As I did not believe I did but always leave room for the possibility that my past as a drunken sailor may seep out, I asked the son which one. HECK, he says. You can't say HECK. So, I let him know that, nope, heck is okay. He doesn't concur. I poll the husband and we both agree, heck is good. The sons presses on so I know it is now the age appropriate time to explain cursing.

I let him know there are words we don't say so we have come up with words that sound sort of close. Which words he asks, other than that AIG one that seems to give mommy those strange fits? How do I know which words not to use if I don't know them, he presses on. Considering he has a valid point, I let him know that "hell" is one word not to be used as it is a curse and not considered a satisfactory behavior in most classrooms in most of the states in this great union of ours. Which one, he asks again, just to hear me say it? Hell, I say which starts Mia on a practice session of a new word which fortunatey could be sold as her version of "hello, hello, hello."

He nods his understanding and, just to make sure we are giving him explicit and on-going permission to say "heck" asks us, "so...you...are...telling...me...it...is...okay...to ...say.. heck?" very slowly and with very careful annunication of each word. Apparently the child has discovered that the universal technique to communicate with others who do not understand English whatsoever, speaking much more loudly and much more slowly, is the best manner of communicating important points to the parents in his life. We all agree that heck is okay and move on to other scintillating topics like who I had talked to that day that not only didn't want me to work for them but chose to share just how bad the job market is, citing so and so who has been out of work for one year, and the whole group of those guys who have been out of work since memorial day and so on.

A couple of minutes pass by, we are discussing dessert or lack there of and the son apparently decides to make sure he has the whole cursing thing down pat and and states, "Excuse me, so, I probably shouldn't ask "What the HELL is the glue stick doing on the table?" I agree that most probably, asking that question would not be a good idea given the forgoing conversational rules. His father lets me know that I'm geting the trip to school on this one.