Clavicle

Clavicle: (n) technical term for collarbone.

He weighed eighty-five pounds.

I, on the other hand, was a hundred and ninety. We were both eleven years old, and close friends.

He loved to wrestle. He especially enjoyed doing it with me because it made him feel strong, tough and courageous to take on his massive
buddy.

Of course, I’m not gonna roll over and not wrestle (even though I guess rolling over is part of wrestling). So we would get into it.

One day, during a sleepover at his house, we were tumbling along, and he suddenly screamed out in pain. I thought he was just kidding, so I continued my vigil. But he kept squalling, and finally said, “Stop it!”

I pulled away as his mother appeared in the door, having heard the great commotion.

Well–they took him to the doctor. He had broken his clavicle. They explained to me that meant his collarbone.

It’s a design flaw.

The clavicle is a suspension bridge that goes across from one shoulder to the other, which should be thicker–maybe four lanes. But it’s pretty thin, and more like a gravel country road.

It actually breaks pretty easily. At least, that’s what my mother told me when trying to comfort my soul over hurting my friend.

His mother, on the other hand, refused to allow me to come over any more, for fear that I might snap her boy’s neck. I explained there was a difference between a neck and a collar bone. Her response was, “You’re not a doctor. What would you know?”

So whenever I hear of someone breaking his or her clavicle or collar bone, I have two thoughts deep in my heart:

  1. Ah, oh… No more fun with your friends.
  2. Can someone make that little thing stronger?

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Babysit

Babysit: (v) to look after a child or children while the parents are out.Dictionary B

Babysitting would be tolerable, perhaps even pleasurable, if you were actually asked to care for a baby. Taking care of an infant might give you loads of time between diaper changing and bottle giving.

But most people don’t ask you to babysit their infant. No, they want you to take care of children between the ages of two and fourteen, who they know could never be left alone because they’re so out of control.

So as a babysitter, you walk in understanding that you’re at the mercy of the parenting skills of people who are so anxious to get out of the door and away from their sprouts that they barely have time to grant you a courteous greeting.

And of course, the little ones save up their worst antics and lies for the babysitter. Here are some popular ones:

  1. “No, it’s true. Mom always lets us have 4 cookies right before bed.”
  2. “We watch R-rated movies with our parents all the time.”
  3. “My mom and dad don’t discipline me. You’re being mean.”
  4. “I’m allowed to wrestle with my little brother unless he bleeds or screams.”

Well, you get the idea.

Kids are humans, and therefore much too intelligent to merely be “tended,” but instead, require corralling and sometimes, restraint. So babysitting is an arduous, fearful, cautious and often thankless job.

Because to get the kids and the mom and dad to like you means that you must be lenient enough that the children don’t have a vendetta against you … and the parents do not feel that the destruction in the house warrants you being fired. 

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Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

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