Excuse me? What did you say?

One thing we’ve been working on with Mitchell is saying “excuse me?” instead of “unh?” when he doesn’t understand what someone said to him. Mitchell has actually gotten pretty good at it. Sometimes he’ll slip and say “unh?” and then he’ll quickly said, “I mean…excuse me? What did you say?”

One night Mitchell was watching the Braves game on TV. The batter bunted the ball and the announcer described the play. Mitchell got all excited and turned to me and said, “Mommy, when you take the bat and do this, it’s called a butt.” And he laughed hysterically. He was very excited about this baseball term that was new to him and he was doubly excited that it involved a word that would dissolve him into a fit of giggles. Once I realized what he was talking about, I said, “Mitchell, it’s called a bunt, not a butt.” Then I spelled it out for him. While he still enjoys baseball, I think it has lost some of its luster now.

Obviously there are tons of words in the English language that Mitchell hasn’t been exposed to yet. Words like…Chick-fil-A. I recently started working at CFA. And the week before I was to come to work, Mitchell and I went to Chick-fil-A for lunch. Except he calls it “Chick-o-lay”. Of course when I talk to him, I call it Chick-o-lay because I think the pronunciation is cute. I just have to remember to not say it like that at work!

That brings me to something else I’ve been thinking about since I started working at Chick-fil-A. The cows who can’t spell. Everyone has seen the “Eat Mor Chikin” promotion. It’s cute and very clever. But I can’t help but wonder if CFA ever receives complaints from school teachers, English majors or others who are anal about words being spelling correctly. Because it’s not just “more” and “chicken” that they can’t spell. There are words like “appreciashun,” “familee,” “foowd,” “peeple” and “calindar” that the cows can’t spell either.

I have a much longer commute now and on my way home last Friday (with a Cow Appreciashun Day cup in the seat beside me), I got to thinking about how my name would be spelled if the cows had to spell it. Traycee? That’s actually not too far off from the spelling of my name if you move some letters around.

Hopefully this post has encouraged someone to eat at Chick-fil-A today. : )