The Jeff Corwin Betrayal

I have a 7 year old son Harry, who is a very curious nature lover. When it comes to anything non-fiction, when he has a question he will not relent until satisfied. He grills me and my and my husband, forces me to look it up online, and reviews the various reference books we have laying around the house. I particularly enjoy that whenever he wants me to look something up online, he tells me “look up naked mole rat.com.” Back when his thing was dinosaurs, he asked me to look up stegosaurus.com. Everything of interest to him must end in dot-com. The kid can also ebay like a madman, but that’s another story.

Anyway, yesterday around dinner time I was in the kitchen doing the whole dinner prep/domestic thing while Harry was in the family room watching Animal Planet. His favorite nature show is “The Jeff Corwin Experience” so as I worked on dinner, he was very content watching Jeff and creating something beyond my abilities with legos.

For those of you not in the know, Jeff Corwin is a very enthusiastic herpetologist (snake guy) who travels all over the world and tracks and captures all kinds of animals. His enthusiasm flows from his pores, and he does a good job offering interesting and detailed facts. Jeff is also very goofy, playing tricks with the camera and making it look like he is in peril. He gets a lot of laughs from my son.

So, here is the scene. Me, at the kitchen sink able to hear the TV clearly but not very focused on Jeff Corwin, and Harry in the family room. A commercial break is coming up and Jeff does a voice over referring to a “horny” animal of some sort. Horny was the word that stood out. I froze at the sink. Did Jeff Corwin just say HORNY? No, no, no, it’s a nature show kids watch. Jeff wouldn’t do this to me. He wouldn’t say horny. I’m not entirely a prude when it comes to harsh language (I can drop the F bomb just fine), but Jeff’s use of term horny had me petrified. Because of him, I would have to answer the question “What does horny mean?” Harry is tenacious about getting answers so I didn’t dare leave my post at the sink for fear of drawing attention to myself. If Harry saw me, it might remind him he wanted to ask me about horny. So, I just stayed at the sink. I tried composing an answer in my head. “Well, horny means that a girl animal wants a boyfriend, and if it’s a boy animal, he wants a girlfriend.” Naturally, that could lead to other questions I am simply not ready to answer, nor do I think he is ready to hear. My so-so answer at the ready, I stood at the sink. I did not turn on the water. I made no noise for about 2 minutes. After the commercials were over and Jeff came back on, I was finally able to relax. With the program on again, I knew Jeff would move onto some other interesting animal or offer up nice scientific yet wholesome explaination of horny, sparing me.

Thanks to the hypnotic effects of building legos, I had really dodged a bullet that time.

But I know a whole battery of artillery is still on its way.