Junior Moment

You're familiar with "senior moments," those times when you forget something so simple, so commonplace, that you fear you've temporarily embodied the brain of a person much, much older than yourself.

Well, yesterday, just the opposite happened in my fifth/sixth grade art class. This is the same class that I'm studying ancient Egypt with. (And yes, I realize I just ended a sentence with a preposition. Fire me.)

We were making Egyptian wigs as our art project. Thanks to Kelly, we had four skeins of black yarn to make generously coiffed hairpieces. (No, we didn't use anywhere near even one skein's worth.)

I went around to each student measuring the circumference of his or her head. Then I asked, "Do you want to make the wig for a man, woman, or child?" Every girl answered, "Woman," and every boy answered, "Man."

One boy said, "Yeh, 'cuz mans are cool!"

I smiled at him and asked, "Mans?"

"Yes! Mans are cool, don't you think?"

"Do you mean 'men'?"

He still looked at me funny. Then that "lightbulb" effect happened.

"Men! I mean 'men'! What in the world made me say 'mans'? Good thing you're my grammar teacher."

I chuckled and thought, "Junior moment."