You Wanna Take a Ride on WHAT?!?!?

There are lots of things you never want to hear from your daughter, at ANY age. Things like, what's a gag reflex, or what does it mean to pop your cherry, and I hate the salty taste, or sexting is the shit. Those types of things tend to drive a father crazy. For me, I can only imagine what my reaction would be, but being a father of two girls allows me to hear them all, more or less, in a somewhat downgraded form. When my 6-year old started to sing Lady Gaga, I thought nothing of it until I heard her say "I want to take a ride on your disco stick." It was then I decided to crawl into a really big hole and cry. It got worse. I then had to explain what a disco stick was....in terms that a 6-year old can understand. Not easy considering this disco stick has nothing to do with botany.

I thought very hard about the next few sentences that were going to come out of my mouth. I was afraid of answering it wrong and making light of it, making her think it was an instrument of play used in video gaming. I thought better of that idea since she is growing up in that age and may accidentally ask to play with little Johnny's disco stick next, which may get her thrown out of the birthday party. That could be a problem. I couldn't use it to reference a stick shift in a car, since she may ask to borrow someones car and drive it, just as long as it wasn't a disco stick because she doesn't handle those very well. As soon as she goes off to school and goes to prom, I would hate for her reputation to be soiled because her disco stick prowess was not up to par, making her dateless to future dances, essentially helping her commit social suicide. What to do, what to do...

So I decided to use buzz words, wow her with medical terminology or basically dumb it down to the point where it no longer matters what the fuck a disco stick is, and try my HARDEST to make light of it to draw her focus elsewhere, like, cheat grass and sidewalk chalk. I used words like smooth muscle, prepuce, innervated nerves, increased blood flow, rigor, etc. Just enough for her to regret asking her father such a silly question. It isn't that I don't want her to feel comfortable asking me sexual questions. Being a father of two daughters I have tried to instill the exact opposite in them. I want them to feel comfortable about talking with me about ANYTHING, without recourse. I would just as soon, however, have these conversations with a child who's nocturnal emissions are down to ZERO and do not have training wheels on their bike. Looking in my rear view mirror I cringed thinking, after everything I had said, it could have possibly fallen on deaf ears. To my delight, her next question brought down my level of discomfort. "Can we have chicken nuggets for lunch?"

You bet, but just so you know....they are salty.