A Lesson in Proper Adjectives

Good Morning Young People.

That is the way one of my high school teachers started EVERY class, regardless of time of day. Good Morning Young People! Keep in mind this was the same teacher that passed out cold on her bar stool one day and had to be rushed to the doctor for "taking too much medicine". It does not escape me that in some households a good full bottle of Jim Beam is considered to the Miracle of all Medicines. Either way this post is not even about the Good Morning Young People teacher (there will be more to come on her in the coming weeks as there is much to tell) this post is about a lesson given to the Baby Waterboy this past week.

Proper adjectives while they seem to be easy little things some of them are a bit confusing to a 38 year old who hasn't picked up a grammar book in 20 years 12 year old. This particular assignment was technically given to him last Thursday and I promptly forgot that he had homework until 9:30 pm Sunday evening which lead to massive screaming fest to try to find the agenda and books and paper and pencil an organized walk to the table to complete the assignment.

Assignment: Change the following words to Proper Adjectives.
Rome
Celt
Inca
Shakespeare
New Year's Day
Victoria

Here is Waterboy's Answers

Roman
Celtic
Incan
Shakespearean
New Year's Day
Victoria's Secret

Yes.. you read that right.. Victoria's Secret.

I came so close to letting that paper be filed right in the homework folder just for the fun of it. I mean come on.. the 12 year old Victoria's Secret.. that is good stuff right? Let me explain why I did not, this will only be relevant to those that ever went to school in Mathews in the 7th grade but I want you to know that the English teacher you had 30 plus years ago... same one Baby Waterboy has today. While I love her to pieces as I have known her all my life there is just something about that look and that little disappointed shake of the head she can give that still just gets to me.

So sadly that night I took out an eraser and handed to the Baby Waterboy and said "erase.. that one is not right", at that moment something odd happened, something that has never happened before in life, the Baby Waterboy did not scream at me that he was right and I didn't know what I was talking about and he knew it was right and he wasn't going to change it and on and on and on, instead the miracle of all miracles occured, he took the eraser from my hand and began erasing. I stood there in shock for a couple of minutes trying to digest exactly what had happened and how I was time warped into someone else's kitchen with someone else's little boy doing the same exact homework assignment because this certainly was not my child .... that is until he looked up and saw me standing there in disbelief and said "What??!!??" it was that moment that I saw that little gleam of mischief in his eye, it was then that I saw what was really transpiring here, it was that exact second that I realized Victoria had been used for a small little bit of shock value.

It was then that once again he proved to me that he could be non other than exactly what he is.. my kid.