Finally, proof that I didn't marry a toddler - posted at 13:25

Back when I had first moved to Alaska in 2005, Cory spent a year in Kunsan, South Korea, working with guys who flew the F-16. It was a great job for him and the tour was just long enough that he learned a ton and just short enough that he got out of their with his sanity intact. However, he bears unmistakable marks of spending a year with fighter pilots in a remote, far-away land. No, they're not physical marks. It's not even something that you might readily pick up on just from spending a little bit of time around him. But if there was a pilot there, you'd probably be able to figure it out in three seconds flat.

See, certain words are off-limits in the house now. They're not the usual four-letter taboo words that are easy enough to keep out of your vocabulary if need be because the taboo is widely understood. No, these words - common necessary words like "box" and "head" - are off-limits because they'll either cause Cory to giggle or make him say "So to speak!" - the military equivalent of "that's what she said." You can't even say something like "I'm craving a salty snack" without hearing someone throw a So To Speak out there. It's even worse if there are other aircrew (or people who've worked with enough aircrew to regress to gigglers themselves) around - like, exponentially worse. Silly boys.

My typical response? I hold out four fingers on my hand and say, "my husband is this many!"

This is really, really typical and very prevalent in the community that Cory's in. When a bunch of us girls who are involved with guys who are This Many get together, this inevitably comes up as a topic of commiseration. It's something we've all come to accept to varying degrees and we've learned to censor ourselves but sometimes we're not totally successful, as the following anecdote will illustrate:

Last week I was making two enormous stock pots of chicken stock and of course it was splattering all over the place, making a huge mess. I was wearing an apron so I wouldn't have to chuck out ruined, grease-ridden clothes afterward, and Sienna was going out of her Little Doggie Mind because the apron smelled so good, soaking in all that delicious chickeny goodness. She was following me around like, well, a dog, hoping to get her some of that. In the middle of a particularly intense gaze from her, I turned to Cory and said, "She wants this chickeny apron so bad. That look on her face totally says 'I just want to put it in my mouth and suck on it!'"

Cory got a funny look on his face, turned aside, and after a couple of seconds I realized what had just come out of my mouth and how it totally came out wrong. I wasn't about to be embarrassed though - I was too excited because Cory hadn't said so to speak in the totally triumphant voice that he could have because I walked right into that one.

I'm thinking about upgrading him to (holds out eight fingers) this many!

Marissa commented:

Sweetie, that's all military men LOL. My husband, and his section sgt, are just as bad. What is worse, is that I'm horrible like that too.

Jitterbean Girl commented:

Marissa: It must be some sort of weird culture thing, because not all Air Force guys are like that. In the AF, it's the guys who fly (including all the guys who fly around in the planes, not just the pilots) and the poor schmucks who've had to work with them, like their intel folks. When I was on active duty I didn't work directly with pilots for the most part but I could always tell who had because of the crazy shit that came out of their mouths. The enlisted guys were able to keep their minds out of the gutter, but the O-6 who used to fly the F-15? So To Speak came out of his mouth on a regular basis.

Marissa commented:

Another difference in AF and Army LOL