Just a bit of societal observation...

My friend Kyle sent me an email:

Title: Maybe I'm just overly sensitive....
"Just a bit of societal observation...I’ve found what I think is a good example of phrases not for use with your 7-8 year old daughter... While making my way through Cub Foods today, I headed down the “Potatoes, Stuffing, etc” aisle and came upon a mother & daughter heading in the opposite direction. Daughter had gotten ahead of mother & walked backwards with the cart to mom to get back to where mom was looking at miscellaneous canned goods. Mom then asked her what she thought she was doing and chastised her that if she was going to “dick around” with the shopping cart, she shouldn’t be coming along to the store...While I believe “dick around” is a perfectly good phrase (I have more than enough occasions to use this term at work for example :), it just doesn’t strike me as a term to throw at your young daughter at the supermarket, or anywhere else for that matter. Maybe I’m just behind the times, and this is just part of hip mother/daughter conversation these days."

Well, today Jen and I went to Perkins with Eryn. Normally I'm not a Perkins sort of person, preferring Highland Grill or The Louisiana Grill, but I had a lot of reporting work to do today and wanted some pancakes and was out of eggs, so it had to do (shout out to Shanna from work, I saw you even if you didn't see me). There was a pretty good wait at Perkins and there was a dad there with his family, including a son who looked to be 12 or 13 and who was exceedingly restless - at one point the kid stood there holding the double doors open even though it was very cold in the entryway - I had to keep grabbing Eryn by the hood to keep her from sprinting out of the waiting area and into the cold. Several times his dad had to tell him to behave and sit down. Well, he finally did. All was fine for a few minutes, and then I hear, "What are you doing? Are you touching it? Quit that." Out of the corner of my eye, I notice that junior has his hands in his pockets, unable to touch anything he can't reach through his pockets. His dad looks like his kid just peed on something in public and proceeds to inform him (very very quietly), "Don't do that in public."

Now that would be "dicking around". Makes me glad Eryn is a girl.