que whore-ror!

was watching conan with my seven-year-old brother. i know - late night tv isn't for kids. first, it's on way too late. also, who knows what they'll do next on late night? but i love conan and i love my brother, and i figured it was about time the two of them met. anyway, during one of the show's gags, conan accidentally introduced the word "whore" to my brother's vocabulary. so my baby brother turned to me and predictably asked, "what's a whore?"

oh-kay.

"weeeeeeelll, sweetie," i hedged, rifling through my brain, searching for the perfect way to explain such an indelicate subject. "honey, it's like this..." obviously, there is no perfect way to explain the word whore without opening another can of worms, like, "what's sex?" or worse, "what's fellatio?". so i decided to lie. "...a whore is somebody who kisses someone and asks for money in return. you know, for the kiss."

he seemed happy with that explanation. then much later on, when it was time to turn in, i asked my brother for a good-night kiss.

yep, you got it.

my baby brother held out for cash, proudly proclaiming, "i'm a whore!"

crap! always answer scandalous questions with the no-argument response of "shush! that's a grown-up word!" and hope to god they'll just look it up when they finally know how to use a dictionary.

i so cannot be a parent. as in, ever.