Pimp, Dik, Bumfit, FIGGOT!

Well, THAT happened.

Seriously–

About five years ago I bought a bunch of bookmarks and thought, “Oh joy!  I have swag!” and offered them up to the world.  For about three years, I got a request for those bookmarks maybe once a week.  It was fun.  I signed them, I sent them, I thought, “Hey!  Someone out in the world knows who I am, and that’s sort of cool!”

So on Friday, I put out the alert that I had swag available, expecting that same leisurely, once a week pace.

My nearest and dearest have assured me that I’m not very bright.  They’ve also assured me that my head needs to be examined.  Thankfully, they’re also hopeful that postage is a tax write off, and we’re going with that, because I have no idea how to set up a pay-pal account to make people pay me for postage.  If I ever do this again, I may look into it, but until then, I’m going to use a little faith.

How big did this runaway train get, you ask?

Well, let me tell you about my Saturday before I answer.

Saturday, we had two things to do.  First there was soccer (and we’ve only got three more games left per child, HUZZAH!!)  And the second one was sort of cool.  My parents have an RV, a really NICE RV, and they take it places, like you do.  Anyway, one of the places they take it is about an hour north of here, near Jackson, CA–and this place does Halloween up right! Almost all of the RV’s decorate, and people go outside and dress up–the adults are almost ALL dressed, and they hand out candy, and trick-or-treating is EVER so fun and easy!  And the kids could dress up and have a BLAST!

So BEFORE we went to that event, a friend of mine e-mailed me, and said “I want to count like an English shepherd!  Yan, Tan, Tethera, Pethera, Pimp!”

o.0

O–kay… really?

So I looked it up!  And YES!  English shepherds still use a Celtic/Welsh amalgam to count–yan, tan, tethera, pethera, pimp!  Sethera, lethera, hovera, covera, dik! Yan-a-dik, tan-a-dik, tethera-dik, pethera-dik, bumfit!  Yan-a-bumfit, tan-a-bumfit, tethera-bumfit, pethera-bumfit, FIGGOT!”   ISN’T THAT COOL?????!  It’s especially cool when you count in FIVES!  When you count by fives, you say, “Pimp, Dik, Bumfit, Figgot!”

So there my husband and I were, driving down to Jackson (up to Jackson?  Sideways to Jackson?  Out in the middle of bumfuck Egypt on the WAY to Jackson?) and I started telling him about English shepherd counting!  And he got really excited too, because he uses a base 8 system, and when he asked me what was bigger than a figgot, I said, “Nothing– because then you have a score!”

He was impressed!  “It’s a base twenty system!” he exclaimed, and suddenly he was explaining how base eight and base sixteen works, and how it would work with a base twenty, and I was cracking up.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“Well, you’re the engineer, and you’re all about base twenty, base eight, and all of that math stuff that has me sort of glazing over, and I’m all about, ‘Pimp, dik, bumfit, FIGGOT!’ cause it’s hella funny to say!!!”

And we laughed for a good long time.

And the whole time this is happening?

I’m getting e-mails, and when I was at home I was addressing packages and signing swag and getting more and more and more overwhelmed and there’s still requests coming in and I need to buy more envelopes and…

Yeah.

So how much swag am I sending out when I get paid, you ask?

Well, it’s more than a figgot and a bumfit– in fact?  I think it’s gonna be two figgots and a pimp!

Oh yeah– and for our musical moment?  Locomotive Breath is for the feeling of releasing a juggernaut you hadn’t anticipated.  Jet Airliner was playing on my iPod this morning, and I keenly felt that one– I didn’t want to get on a big ol’ jet airliner again for a very very long time, and Squish didn’t want me to either!