DInner Conversation

We sit down at the dinner table together each night.  It is an important part of our family life.  It is a time to sit together and enjoy (or complain about) our meal.  Unlike times gone by we encourage our children to be seen and heard. Lately Alonzo has been asking about the etymology  of words.  He wants to know why trees are called trees and forks called forks not the other way around. How do you answer a question like, why is that called a chair? David makes up wild tales by way of explanation.  

Tonight the boy wanted to know why butter is called butter.  Dad asked Alonzo what he thought.  Alonzo said a butterfly landed on the first ever butter so they named it after the butterfly.  Nice story, I like it!

Dad replied not bad but said the real story involved a fat man who tripped and sat in a vat of cream.  His butt got stuck tightly and no matter how he wiggled or danced about the container of cream stayed stuck tight.  By the time someone came to his aid and pulled it off the cream had been churned into butter.  When the men saw the floating mass of yellow butter they thought the man had an accident and yelled out BUTT TURD!   

At this point my jaw fell open and I thought surely I had heard wrong but one glance at four boys all nearly hysterical with glee confirmed that I had heard correctly and my husband had obviously lost all of his good manners and common sense somewhere along the line.  Just in case I missed what Dave said a second later Colin nearly fell out of his chair laughing as he asked me to pass the butt turd.  

As I glared in his direction David did amend the story to say that the fat man's mother wouldn't let him call it butt turd so he changed it to butter to make his mother happy.  If my four boys want to keep me happy (oh and trust me they do) they will remember not to call it butt turd!