So imagine my surprise

Post title an homage to Local Egg, who always manages to find song lyrics to fit.

Recently I was driving somewhere with Z and someone cut us off at a rotary. "Dude!" I shouted (I do make an effort not to swear around the kids). "Mommy, why did you call that other driver 'dude'?" Z asked. "Uh, because I didn't know their name, honey." I replied.

A few days later we were walking down the street when a tall woman with short hair passed us. She said hi to me and Z , and we returned the greeting. Before the other woman was out of earshot, Z asked me her name. I told her I didn't know. Z thought for a second and inquired "Oh, Mommy, was that a dude?". The woman shot me a dirty look.

Also, as a follow-up to the Noam Chomsky post - last week Z narrowly avoided a collision with Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Nobel prize winners of the Boston area, beware of small blonde children!

Please, sir, may I have some heavy artillery?

I read this Metafilter thread on recommendations for books that are good introductions to the field and was reminded of a former colleague of mine who had recently been discharged from the Navy. He was finishing a distance learning degree and complained that the university was making him complete a literature survey course before graduation. "I'm studying computer science," he said indignantly. "Why do I have to know about the cannons [sic] of Western Literature?"
"*Cannons*?" I asked, thinking I hadn't quite heard him correctly.
"Yeah," he said, "you know, like, the big guns! Dickens and stuff!"

Incarcerated at 7-11?

I recently switched offices, and to R's delight my new workplace is close to a 7-11. Last week he was hanging out with me because school hadn't yet started, and one afternoon I decided to treat him to a Slurpee.
While we were waiting to pay he was watching the premade breakfast sandwiches and burgers slowly spinning inside their glass case. The case had labels in both English and Spanish: "Sandwiches to go" and "Jale".

"Mommy?" R asked. "Why are those sandwiches in jail?"