When boys ask the wrong questions

You hear the strangest things in the supermarket sometimes. Strange and sometimes truly funny. I remember the day Anne and I had completed the shopping and were proceeding through the checkout when an item failed to scan. Holding up the multi-pack of 20 denier black tights Anne had bought, our checkout assistant called to her friend, "Tracey, what do you put these on?" Without thinking I responded, "I know I'm only a man but I think the answer is 'legs'."

Flushed with embarrassment, our assistant sank into her chair and entered the code Tracey had now helpfully supplied. I smiled, we paid and left.

You'd have thought by now I'd have learnt my lesson, but I still find all sorts of things amusing. When informed by a waitress one evening that the special tonight was corn-fed chicken breast, I had to ask how you get a chicken breast to eat the corn. I blame Gary Larson and the Far Side cartoons. 

Anyway, there we were, Ally and me, in Tescos looking at shower gel. All of a sudden I heard a voice behind me declare, "If they haven't got wings, I don't want them!" Knowing which aisle we were in, I intuitively understood the nature of the product in question, but it still made me laugh a little. But more was to come. Clearly the "winged only" shopper was not alone. Apart from the younger female member of the shopping party there was a younger boy, a brother probably, brothers are always trouble, ask my sister. 

Intrigued by the wings/no wings debate, he wanted to know what was under scrutiny. "They're not for boys", he was told in no uncertain tones but his curiosity was now well and truly piqued. He persisted with his questions and his mother, as I suspect she was, persisted in trying to side-step the issue. 

At this point Ally and I had made our considered evaluation of the shower gel and with said product in our basket we headed for another part of the store. As we went, I wondered to myself if the mystery shopper in the body wash and other items aisle had successfully negotiated a conclusion to the conversation, or had opted for the simpler solution of a trip to MacDonanlds!

One day that young boy will grow to be a man and know not to enquire about such delicate matters. But until then may he bring joy and laughter into many lives, even if it's not his mother's when in Tescos!