For some reason tonight I thought of one of my favorite stories about my mom, which is also a word story. So, at the risk of embarrassing her, here goes:
We were in Chicago over Christmas several years ago. We were all in the car together, and I was in the backseat reading the Chicago Reader. I came to the back of the paper, where the “adult services” ads are. I just had to tell the entire car how funny I thought it was that one of the “adult services” had a phone number that was listed as 382-DUCK.
“Duck? Why is that funny?” she said.
I prompted her that D, E, and F were all on the same telephone keypad button. She thought about that for a minute.
“E-U-C-K? Well, that doesn’t even spell anything!” she said.
I love my mom.