Legend: A youngster embarrassingly confuses sanitary pads with dinner napkins.
Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2002]
The Good Napkins My mother taught me to read when I was four years old (her first mistake). One day, I was in the bathroom and noticed one of the cabinet doors was ajar. I read the box in the cabinet. I then asked my mother why she was keeping 'napkins' in the bathroom. Didn't they belong in the kitchen? Not wanting to burden me with unnecessary facts, she told me that those were for "special occasions." Now fast forward a few months .... It's Thanksgiving Day, and my folks are leaving to pick up the pastor and When they returned, the pastor came in first and immediately burst into laughter. Next came his wife who gasped, then began giggling. Next came my father, who roared with laughter. Then came Mom, who almost died of embarrassment when she saw each place setting on the table with a "special occasion" napkin at each plate, with the fork carefully arranged on top. I had even tucked the little tails in so they didn't hang off the edge!! My mother asked me why I used these and, of course, my response sent the other adults into further fits of laughter. "But, Mom, you SAID they were for special occasions!" |
Origins: This particular rendition of a time-honored anecdote has been part of online lore since at least 1998, but the story itself had been used by at least one comedian for a decade prior to that. As early
as 1989 Jay Leno was telling this very tale on himself during his
Yes, kids do indeed say and do the darndest things, and everyone's mother has odd items secreted in the bathroom that she'd rather not explain. (Mine had an array of awe-inspiring contraptions, including one that later proved to be a leg-waxing implement. I regarded it all as inexplicable adult stuff, and never asked questions lest I justly be accused of snooping, a crime, in my family at least, judged to be right up there with murder and the violent overthrow of properly-constituted governments.) And surely some kid somewhere has misinterpreted "feminine napkins" to mean "dinner napkins" with hiliarious consequent results. But it's still just a story, one meant to both make us laugh and to remind us that children are surprisingly literal and thus should not be given euphemistic explanations in place of straight talk lest those "explanations" come back to adorn the dinner table.
Barbara "wherever does one place the napkin ring, though?" Mikkelson
Last updated: 19 March 2005
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