Blankety Blank Blank Blank

Madeline looked out the window, this morning, and shouted "Holy Blank!" as she took in the heavy fog that had collected around the lake outside the school. To her credit, she did actually say "blank" and did not fill in the blank. But still--and then she said it again.

"Madeline!" I said. "We do not say that! Where did you hear such a thing?"

"I made it up." She said. Proudly. Boldly. Dare I say . . . rebelliously.

"You could not have made up that phrase." I said. "I don't believe it. You must have heard it somewhere and I want to know where. Was is a tv show? A friend? Where?"

Still, she insisted she made it up. So . . .

"You don't say 'Holy Blank' do you hear me? The blank stands for a naughty naughty word you've probably never even heard before and I don't want to hear you say that ever again. And for the record. Don't let me hear you say 'What the blank?' either!"

She nodded and feigned shame, but I knew she would probably say it again and probably in school and some other child would say it and go home and get in trouble and I would get a call like the one on Christmas Story when Ralphy says "fudge"--only he doesn't say fudge--and his mom wigs out and calls a boy's mom who then goes and lights up her child's world for supposedly teaching Ralphy the word.

ugh.

While I'm daydreaming (or nightmaring) about that, Michael interrupts with all that thinking he likes to do.

"So, we can't say 'Blank?'" He asks . . . rightfully confused.

"Of course you can say blank." I said, reassuringly. "Why wouldn't you be able to say blank? (duh) When a paper is empty, it's blank. When you can't think of something, you've drawn a blank. When there's a space after a question, it's a blank. 'Blank' is not a bad word. It's what the blank represents that's a bad word.

"Can we say Holy Cow?" His eyes were all squinty and his forehead all wrinkly and his brain all tied up in knots.

"Well, sure. You say that all the time."

"Can we say Holy Moly?"

"Yeah!"

"And we can say blank."

"Yes."

"But we can't say Holy Blank."

"Right. That is naughty."

"Well, that doesn't even make any sense."

ha! The BLANK it doesn't!