such a precocious child.

IV.

When I was -- oh, my mother doesn't remember exactly how old, perhaps six or seven -- I was reading a magazine that someone had left sitting around. Perhaps it was an old Newsweek or maybe even that bathroom classic Reader's Digest, but I was reading along cheerfully until I got to a word that I just didn't recognize. And so I sought out my mother, and said:

"Mom? What's semen?"

[long silence] "Uhm, do you mean, like, men who work on a boat?"

"I don't think so."

My mother gave me a definition -- somewhat gingerly -- and I, satisfied that I could now finish reading the article in context, toddled off, magazine in hand.

Thursday 24 January, 01:26 PM