Pho

The other evening Vivian had a dinner invitation at a neighbor's home. Jo was off to meet some ladies for drinks. So Evan and I went to my favorite pho place in Austin (Tan My - a hole in the wall). We sat down and discussed how to pronounce pho. Not a long "o" sound. "Fuh" I said, thinking in my head like "fuck". And I smiled and Evan asked why.

I explained that sometimes when you mean one word but say or think of another, probably inappropriate word, it's funny.

"Like vulva" he said.

And I laughed so hard I almost squirted my pho and said it was exactly like vulva.

A couple of weeks ago we had started looking for a car to replace the Subaru. Jo and I visited the dealerships while the kids were at school. After school we'd tell them where we had been and what we liked. One evening I said we had been to the Volvo dealer. I was very excited because of the overseas delivery option - you "buy" the car at the dealer in Austin, Volvo pays for two round trip air tickets to Sweden, you go there and pick up your car, they pay for 15 days of European auto insurance, and then they ship it back to Austin for you, cheaper than if you bought the car in Austin. So excited in fact that though we eventually bought an English-made car, we are off to Sweden in a couple of weeks.

But Evan was more excited for a different reason. They have been doing sex-ed in class. He is up on his anatomy (and Vivian knows exactly how the sperm gets to the egg). So he said:

"You want a Volvo? It sounds like a potty word: vulva!"

Jo explained that vulva wasn't a potty word, but the mention of Volvo over the next few days always got a devilish smile to Evan's face.