This afternoon Tyler was reaching toward the tippity top of our dining room curio cabinet, which has been home to the kids’ art supplies ever since I got wise enough to store them out of their reach.
“Can you get me the cray-ons?” he asked….
I stared at him for a brief second and blinked. “The what?”
“The cray-ons.”
“Why are you saying it like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like ‘cray-on.’”
“Because that’s what it’s called.”
“Cray-on? As in, cray-off?”
“Well, how do YOU say it?” he demanded.
I confess. I pronounce it like “cran.” “Crayon” is among the multi-syllable words that should be uttered so quickly they automatically lose a syllable. It’s a more comfterble way of speaking. Not to mention, a basic rule of American dialect. Although, a handful of my friends might step in and rune my argument altogether.
“Look,” I said, “I’ll get you the crayons as long as you call them ‘crans.’ You simply can not live under my roof if you continue to speak properer than me. C’mon, say it. CRAN. It won’t hurt a bit.”
He narrowed his eyes and stared right back at me. “That’s NOT how you say it,” he protested. “Cray-on has an O. Without the O, it just sounds dumb.“
“Now listen up!” I countered. “That’s my Torrington roots you’re mocking. I don’t care if you’re growing up Simsbury, and all your friends have their Simsbury houses with their designer jumpers and gold-plated training wheels and birthday parties with clowns who paint faces and make stupid animals out of balloons. In this house, we Torrington. Got it?”
Actually, I really don’t think “cran” is a Torrington thing. But whenever I find myself behaving in an uncouth or uncultured way, I do what’s only logical. I blame it on my hometown.
For a moment, he looked at me like he was considering this. And then, he might as well have turned around, taken three steps, drawn a pistol in each hand and pulled both triggers.
“Cray-on,” he challenged.
“Cran.”
“Cray-on.”
“Cran.”
“Cray-on.”
“Cray-on?” I persisted. “As in, ‘cray-on berry sauce’?”
“No,” he corrected. “That’s ‘cranberry.’”
“HA!” I countered. “I just made you say ‘cran.’”
And with that, I blew the smoke from the barrel of my gun and stuck it back in its holster. Cray-on. Cray-out. Cray-over. This dule has been won.