A while back I had this friend. She was married. She was
recovering from surgery when I met her. While she was healing and off work she
would visit my home to hang out.
One day as it grew time for her to leave she said
“I
guess I have to head home now”
with such negative emotion focused on the word
home that I looked at her and remarked.
“You said that like a prisoner returning to jail after
weekend furlough or something.”
How could home be so bad I wondered. It was not like
she spent her time at my house complaining about her husband or at least not in
a massive way that would have explained to me why she did not look forward to
being at home.
In hind sight perhaps my friend had wanderlust or maybe
she was trapped in a parent child marriage where one partner is over bearing
and treats the other more like a child or a teenager than a partner. This
causes the offended partner to act the part and seek to break away.
Being in the middle of our visit all this was not on my
mind in that moment as my friend was mentally preparing to leave. I mentioned
something like home is supposed to be a place you look forward to going.
She countered by telling me “Home is a four letter
word.”
We were so good together. I countered her with
something I thought was totally positive that was also a four letter word like
cash to which she further countered that cash is great until you are short on
it.
By this time one of us was probably laughing and
neither of us ever laughed long alone.
Off we set to make a list of these seemingly innocent
words that could take on a whole new connotation by situation and intonation.
We need a four letter word for family she said once. It
took us a moment but someone said clan and we both groaned just thinking of all
the lovely misery that family can create.
I don’t think proper nouns were forbidden on the list.
The naughty words were as were plurals made of three letter words with the
letter ‘s’ added.
The friendship is sadly no more but I carry the
memories fondly.
From that time until now I have been known to quip
“____ is a
four letter word.” When seemingly innocent or well meaning things go wrong or
haywire.
Plan, for instance would fit quite nicely in the blank
below and we all know “The best laid plans of mice and men are prone to go awry.”
Other common words could have the same effect: time,
cook, bake, look, nice, the list can go on and on.
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