The Truth Behind Gangnam Style
March 22, 2013
Posted By: Bozemama
Last night we had one of those awkward family moments that none of us will soon forget. I’m pretty sure I handled it poorly.
WARNING: This content may not actually be appropriate for most readers.
So, Charlie and I were chilling and chatting while making dinner in the kitchen when he starts to bust it out Gangnam Style. “I like those moves, my man,” I tell him, breaking into a little giddy-up of my own.
“Yeah, they’re good moves,” he agrees, still shakin’ it Gangnam. “You know what they mean, right Mama?”
“No, buddy, I don’t think so,” I pant, swinging my legs side to side. “What do they mean?”
“Well,” he gives me a quick look – which I realize in hindsight is the curious cocktail of mischief and mirth with a twist of daring that one might wear before jumping off a cliff – and announces to me this:
“It means you are sticking your weiner in someone’s mouth. It’s called ‘teabagging.’”
Um. WHAT?!?!
Suddenly, the world stops; the room is spinning and I can’t get purchase on reality. I think I just heard my precious nine-year-old use “teabag,” as a verb, but I can’t be sure. There were so many other scary words in there too.
How did this happen? This is a little guy who still thinks the word “sexy” is naughty and who blushes during the kissing scenes. And, come to think of it, when and how has he ever watched the Gangnam Style video? Is this the end of the innocence?
Or maybe I am being Punk’d. Do people still get Punk’d? Ashton Kutcher is nowhere in sight, so I turn desperately to my sage and steadfast 13-year-old Hermione, for some kind of enlightenment, but she looks just as dumbstruck.
For the first time in my life, I think EVER: I. Am. Speechless.
Charlie has never seen me like this and is suddenly very aware of the surreal effect that his little dispatch is having on his sister and me. His cheeks warm and he stammers in protest, “What, Mama?! Everybody knows that!”
“What? Who is everybody ?! And where did you learn this information?” I finally manage to ask, trying not to shame him or freak out.
“At school,” he says. And I suddenly have a vivid yet fantastically inappropriate visual of Charlie’s lovely teacher standing at the blackboard with one of those pointer thingies explaining to a group of rapt 4th graders about teabagging. Help.
“Our tax dollars hard at work,” Hermione finally chimes in after recovering herself.
I am so stunned and disoriented that – for a moment – I wonder if I should take a minute to tell my son that his schoolyard “experts” are actually misinformed. Where is Charlie’s dad when I need him?
I am reeling, duking it out with myself internally. Part of me is the scatological sister to four brothers who is totally unfazed by this kind of talk; another part is the mother hen wracked with anguish over what kind of effect this information has on her baby; the weirdest part is the concerned coach who wonders if this calls for some kind of detailed birds and bees discussion or family symposium of some kind. It is the first day of spring, after all.
Sheesh. In the end, Charlie’s dad comes in and I can’t help but ask Charlie to share the Gangnam news bomb with him too. His reaction is priceless and we share one of those long, intense holy-crap-I-won’t-laugh-if-you-won’t eye meetings that keep us from imploding outright.
Wisely, I think, we drop the subject in favor of more appropriate dinner conversation, like whether women should trim their nose hair. Now that the shock has worn off, I am able to step back and get some perspective: I guess Charlie’s dad and I should consider ourselves lucky that our son feels comfortable enough to discuss these kinds of topics with us so openly and – perhaps more importantly – that we get to indulge in the absurd comic relief that can only come from being a parent.
