Poor #4. His brothers have finally figured him out. In order to appear as worldly and wise as they are, he will believe anything.
On Friday afternoon, he came up and asked if he could have the dictionary for his very own. I liked dictionaries when I was a child, too, but his request made me suspicious. I asked why he wanted his own dictionary.
"Not a dictionary, mama, I want to keep this dictionary!"
By now, my 'uh-oh' warning light was flashing red.
"Why do you want this particular dictionary?'
"Well," he replied,"because this dictionary is a very rare and antique dictionary! If I sell it, I could get rich!"
"Why is the 1978 American Heritage College Dictionary rare?" I couldn't figure that one out.
"Because!" he almost shouted, frustration palpable. "This dictionary has the word 'gullible' in it!" He left out the "duh!", but only because he has recently spent a fair number of hours sitting in his room thinking about whether or not he should have said that word to me.
"It what?" I asked. I still had no clue what was wrong with #4.
Sigh, tap tap tap of his foot.
"Mama," he said slowly and very clearly,"this particular dictionary has the word 'gullible' in it. That makes it rare and valuable!"
"What makes you think the inclusion of the word 'gullible' is so astonishing?"
Sighs again, shakes head in that I-am-so-sad-that-my-mother-is-so-stupid way he has.
"Mama, my brothers told me that they have removed the word 'gullible' from the dictionary. This one still has the word in it, and so this is a rare and expensive dictionary! Now do you get it?"
Well, there might have been one recent change to dictionaries everywhere. Next to the word 'gullible', my picture has been replaced by his.
When Poe ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.
Oh Cindy, we did the same thing to a girl in high school-we even went so far as to white out the word from the dictionary. Then we convinced another friend that stop signs with white lines around the outside were optional-you didn't HAVE to stop-a cop followed him for blocks before pulling him over-fortunatly the cop had a sense of humor and didn't give him a ticket-he was soooo mad at us.
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