This One's for the Fans...

I know...I know...I haven't updated since Moses was a boy, but I've been busy thinking about unpacking from our move while watching free HBO.

So here's something that's been swirling around in the recesses of my mind for the last couple of days...and then I promise I'll update with pics of house and Eli (sans pacifier, people...parents: 1, Eli: still more than the parents) and maybe a pregnancy picture so you can see another beautiful life contributing stretch marks to a previously Olive-Oil-like frame. 

So, since we moved to Jackson, I've encountered a whole new culture group.  If you've never visited Jackson, MI (the supposed birthplace of the Republican party, home to Cascades Falls -- they light up, people, and the Hot Air Jubilee), you should drive through some time on your way to that U of M game, eat some White's Chicken and just take in the general societal splendor that will surround you.  If you're feeling really daring, head on over to Wal-Mart at 11:00 at night or just watch One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest -- you will feel the same after either experience.  Anyway, people here often remind me of a bad In Living Color episode.  You don't know why you're watching, but you can't tear yourself away.  Not to say that people here aren't lovely...they're just different from the Christian liberal arts community we've sequestered ourselves in for the last 8 years.

Anyway...I usually get gas now at a gas station 2 seconds from our house.  It usually makes for great social theater.  So I've noticed that every...E.V.E.R.Y. time there are two guys who are also getting gas who realize they know each other from that softball league they were in two years ago.  The exchange goes something like this:

"Hey, bra...what's up?"

 "Not much, bra...good to see you.  You playing in the league again, bra?"

"No, bra...hurt my shoulder last year."

I'm not lying.  Every time...there is a "bra" reunion whilst I'm getting gas. 

Now, here's my question: Why do guys call each other bra?  Is this a Jackson thing...b/c I know we tend to be behind on social trends.  Was bra an accepted term at one point?  Because I don't think Christian liberal arts college students ever called each other bra.  Do they not realize they are using the same term for a device perfected by Victoria's Secret?  It's a bit feminine. 

Also, it's stupid. 

So yesterday, whilst I was taking my fever ridden child for a car ride so that he wouldn't entirely rot his brain from all the Shaun the Sheep we had been watching, I stopped to put gas in my husband's geriatric-mobile.  And again,  there was a "bra" convention happening at pump 3. 

I got back in the car and turned to my son for an explanation as a representative of his sex.  I expected some type of archetypal answer.  "Because, mom...it's how we let the world know we have testosterone,"  or "It's a tribal secret, mom. You'll never understand."  But my sweet little boy looked back at me with those gorgeous brown eyes and said:

"Go to town, mama...get fench fies." 

A man after my own heart.