This just in: Apparently I cannot say the word BOMB either.
This came up because Mr. Monk, my 8-year old, was crying before bedtime due to some teasing on his brother’s part and yelling on my part. When I put him to bed, I asked him why he cried so much and he said, “Because I am sensitive.”
“So you are like a snail?” I said, jokingly, hoping to cheer him up. Utter fail, I know. Snail? WTF, right?
“Why? Because you think I am slow?”
“No. I mean snails are sensitive.” Beats me really. I have never actually looked at a snail longer than one second before I ran away screaming let alone touched one.
“That’s dumb.” He said, with half a smile.
“Ok. Fine. You are sensitive like a bomb.”
“What?”
“A bomb.”
“A bong? What?” No, I don’t think he knows what a bong is thank you very much. It is hard for me to spell the onomatopoeia as Mr. Monk heard them because I could not tell the differences so please simply imagine the variations of what could go wrong when a foreigner is trying to pronounce the “M” sound.
“No. A BOMB.” I said it louder. Yeah yeah I know.
“A bon? A bom?”
“No.” I sighed. “A bomb. A bomb. You know. Like a walking time bomb?”
“Oh. A BOMB.” Ugh, that’s exactly what I have been saying for the past 5 minutes. Apparently not so as far as a native-English-speaker is concerned.
“You are saying it wrong. Make it less…. um… bointy. You know, less Boin’ in it.” Now he’s making up words to teach me how to pronounce a real word.
“Hey, now you know why I can tell the 4 tones in Chinese apart but you can’t. Remember how everything sounded the same to you and I kept on telling you you’re doing it wrong? I really cannot tell the differences between what you are saying and what I am trying to say. They sound the same to me. Isn’t it amazing? Now let’s take a moment to appreciate the wonder that is the human brain.”
The truth is? I gave up on trying to say the word BOMB correctly. I mean, it’s not like I am giving up much; after all, I HAVE managed to learn to pronounce PORN CORN perfectly. Anyway, I won’t be using the word BOMB that often right? I just cannot be a terrorist, you know, if I were one, I probably would need to go into a store (probably Walmart) to buy a bomb some day and hilarity would ensue. Terrorists are people with no sense of humors so that would not work out.
I left the room and went to check on the 12-year-old. “Hey, guess what? I cannot pronounce the word BOMB either?”
“What?”
Oh for fuck sake, not again.
“BOMB. I cannot say the word BOMB.”
“Ohhhhhh you mean Bomb as in a time bomb”
“YES.”
“Say BA.”
“BA.”
“Now say M.”
“M.”
“Now say BOMB.”
“&*%$&” <– I thought I said BOMB but obviously I did not so I do not know how to spell it out.
“Wow. Way to fail mom.”
“Thanks.” Taking a mental note to make fun of him when he speaks Chinese. “Well, it’s not like I am going to buy a bomb or anything.”
“Yeah. But what if you are in a movie theatre, and you see a bomb, and you yell ‘BOMB!’ and people are like, ‘What? What did she say?'”
FUCK.
.
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Now you know why I don't call you Da Bomb any more... Nothing personal.
