Google Is Not Necessarily Your Friend

Okay, I am of the generation/educational level/profession/personality that you'd think I'd totally LOVE Google, the answers to everything you ever wanted to know about anything at all right at your fingertips within seconds. But this is not always a good thing, because there are serious gaps in my hipness and my naivete knows no bounds. Some of you might - and I know my dear friend Heather definitely will - remember the infamous moment when I ran across some girl's LJ who listed among her hobbies "bukkake" and I Googled it - AT WORK! - thinking it was probably some sort of Japanese anime or manga I hadn't yet heard of. It isn't - let's just leave it at that.

So I was reading this book, which is not at all in any way a porno/erotica/fetish sort of book, just a very funny, enjoyable read - I mean, my MOM bought it and then loaned it to me, for goodness sake! It's like the written version of a John Hughes film, only 1000X better. The author wrote for "The Simpsons", so I was expecting hilarity. And there was, through 99.9% of the book, but I did happen across this passage: "Kevin didn't even feel Valli Wooly beating him on the back, and he couldn't hear her screaming, 'You ruined it! You ruined everything! I can't believe I gave you a blumpkin!" Naturally enough, I wondered, "What is a blumpkin?"

I asked Alan, who did not know (thank ALL the gods!). He Googled it, however, and then he told me what he'd learned. It's gross, very gross, and I do not understand why it would be titillating for anyone involved. That's not the point, however. The problem is with the word itself. "Blumpkin" sounds so endearing! and friendly! and probably small and fuzzy, but definitely cute, like your new puppy would be a widdle fuzzy blumpkin. Totally not what it really means. Trust me, don't Google it. I cannot unsee what I has seen.

The conclusion is obvious: I must write a children's book - maybe an entire series - about The Happy Little Blumpkins. I will write wonderful children's books about The Happy Little Blumpkins, which read 'straight' like great children's books, but throughout I will sprinkle slang terms for and references to the most vulgar and disgusting things I know. (Of course, I don't know many, but that's where my [mostly male] friends will come in handy.) I have written the first tonight and if you read it 'straight' it's a lovely, moral, good-night story, but if you know your Urban Dictionary, it's utterly vile. Perhaps I'll post it later but I may wait until I have an illustration. I'm not very good at drawing but I have an image in my head of a cute little blumpkin...which I can tell you without Googling is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT different from any images you may find on the intarweb. Trust me.

Saturday morning, ETA: Alan just read my first children's story about The Happy Little Blumpkins. He had this to say: "Oh, my sweetheart...you're so going to hell for that. And you're not just on the highway to hell - you're on the freakin' Autobahn!"