The Expletive

We knew this day would come. Before Tucker was even born, we knew the day would come that he would discover that his name rhymes with THE bad word, the worst word a person could say. We made it all the way to first grade.

Tonight as Trey was helping Tucker get his pajamas on, they were talking about what went on today at school. Trey always asks the boys, "What was the best part of your day?" and that was the exact conversation they were having tonight.

Tucker explained that his friends had a new way of making nicknames for each other. Last year, he said, they would replace the first letter of each person's with an "s," making Donovan into Sonovan, Luke into Suke, and Tucker into Sucker. We knew about this last year, and Tucker thought it was pretty funny, so it was no big deal.

This year, however, the boys have decided to replace the first letter of their names with "f." Yep. You do the math...er...spelling. Tucker announced, "So they're calling me *ucker. Isn't that funny!"

My jaw dropped. Trey's jaw dropped.

I'm not going to lie, I wanted to explode with laughter, but I knew that was an inappropriate and un-parent-like response. I knew that if we over-reacted then he would decide this word should be used often around the boys at school, so I composed myself and quickly formulated my response.

Me: Tucker, that is a very bad word. Of all the bad words you could say, that's the worst one.

Tucker: *ucker? Why is that a bad word? What kind of bad word is it?

Me: Just a regular bad word, but a really bad one.

Tucker: But, what kind of bad word. Like why do people say *ucker?

Me: Um...do you want me to use it in a sentence or something?

At this point I was trying to hide my giggles while being very grown up and rational. It didn't help that Trey's eyes were laughing hysterically, and I don't think he could look at Tucker. For some reason, this conversation required Tucker to say this very bad word in every sentence.

Trey made an attempt at explanation: Tucker, you know how sometimes people say bad words? That's one of them. (thanks, Trey, because I apparently wasn't getting that across)

Tucker: But WHY do they say it?

Trey: You know how sometimes you say "dang it"?

Tucker: Oh, yeah, I say that all the time.

Trey: Well that word isn't too bad, but if you put an "f" in front of your name it's very bad.

Me (trying to help): It's so bad they won't let you say it on TV!

Tucker: Hmmm... well, what does *ucker mean?

Okay, at this point I just wanted to run from the room. It's bad enough that my six year old is dropping the "f" bomb in every other sentence, but it's SO much worse that he wants to know what it means. Seriously. This could make me change his name.

Me: Tucker, don't worry about what it means. You just need to know that it's a horrible word, and if a teacher hears you or your friends saying it, then you will probably go straight to the office and be in big trouble.

On that note, Trey left the room (probably because his eyes were going to pop out if he didn't laugh out loud soon). Sensing my distress, and an opening now that his dad left the room, Tucker got that evil little "I'm about to pick on my mom grin" on his face and proudly said, "*ucker *ucker *ucker *ucker *ucker."

I just left the room. I got up and walked away. There was nothing left to say at that point, and I couldn't stand it anymore.

Trey insists that the boys Tucker hangs out with know exactly what they are doing, and I don't disagree. I also think about my own name, and all the times that people have asked me if I was made fun of as a child. My answer is always, "If they did, I didn't know it!"

I guess I've passed that along to my oldest son.