More bad words

I'm about to use more questionable language. Everyone brace themselves.

Regular readers of my blog (Hi Mom!) may remember that there was a recent incident in which I may have indirectly or directly participated involving a reverent cathedral, Christmas Eve, and the word "crap." Tonight, however, I'll be writing about a different bad word. The word is...nipple.

It's important to note, however, that I will not be using this word lasciviously, but purely in an anatomical or equally inoffensive manner.

EXAMPLE OF LASCIVIOUS USAGE:
Jessa brushed a strand of blonde hair out of her face and sized up Derek with a look of yearning desire. She licked her lips and ran a single finger down his muscular back as he turned off the kitchen tap and placed into the drying rack the baby's plastic bottle and rubber nipple.

EXAMPLE OF ANATOMICAL USAGE
GMAT Question 917: Why do men have nipples?

Rest assured, I'll be writing about nipples almost entirely in the 2nd sense.

You see, I noticed on the very first time I drove to Hanover, PA, that there was a brick building in Liverpool, PA (a little town on Rt. 15 north of Marysville) with a big sign that reads NIPPLE Convalescent Home on the northern face. This would have been back in December of 2004, when I was driving down to Hanover for the first time to meet J's parents. At the time, I simply smiled at the quirks of Pennsylvanians and continued my drive south.

Here is an unrelated example of Pennsylvanian quirkiness that happened just yesterday. We were filling up at the Sheetz gas station in Littlestown on our way back to New York, and I went inside to get some snacks. There was a middle aged man in a Baltimore Ravens jacket inside who sidled up next to me as I looked at the various types of Combos in the snack rack.

Pennsylvanian: Are you a Yankees fan?
Me: I beg your pardon?
Pennsylvanian: Do you root for the Yankees?
Me: No, I don't really follow baseball.
Pennsylvanian: Oh, I saw you had New York plates. The Giants then?
Me: No, I'm not from that part of New York.
Pennsylvanian: Oh. The Jets, then?
Me: The Buffalo Bills. (I move towards the drink cooler, casually ending the conversation.)
Pennsylvanian: (following) So, does O.J. Simpson still play for the Bills?
Me: No, he hasn't played for the Bills for a very long time.
Pennsylvanian: Do you think he did it?
Me: I'm really not sure. (I stop making eye contact and move to another part of the store.)
Pennsylvanian: (following) I mean, how long does it take to do a DNA test, you know?
Me: (still trying to escape) Mhm.
Pennsylvanian: (following) You know, I was in a medical study once. They told us we couldn't smoke. Then the doctor said he smelled smoke in the men's room, and we all had to pee in a cup. They had the results back in 10 minutes, and they threw 4 of the guys out right then for smoking!
Me: (taking out my cellphone and pretending to get a call) Hello? Yes, this is he...

But anyway, back to nipples. I first noticed the giant NIPPLE on the side of the brick building in Liverpool in 2004, and assumed that J, being a veteran pilgrim of Rt. 15, knew all about it. We continued to make trips back and forth several times a year, and a number of trips later she asked why I was sniggering.

"Because it says nipple on the side of that building."
"What?"
"The side of that building back there says nipple on it. Haven't you ever seen it?"
"I try not to look at the advertisements for those sorts of places."
"No, it's not one of those signs. It's for an old folks home. Nipple must be the last name of the proprietor. But it's really big, and it's in capital letters."
"Huh...I've never seen that before."
"You're kidding! It's huge."
"I'm not sure I believe you..."

And so it happened that every time we went through Liverpool I would laugh at the big nipple, and J would miss it. (It's much harder to see it when you're coming up from the South, so we didn't always remember to look for it then.)

In recent years we'd start to look for it ahead of time, but J seemed to be unable to see it. ("I mean, it's a huge NIPPLE on the side of the building.") Our predicament was not helped by the fact that I had trouble remembering whether the building was in Liverpool or Marysville, and the additional problem that these two towns come up in the most soul-sucking and boring stretch of the drive south. We looked again on our Christmas night trip, hoping perhaps to see NIPPLE softly illuminated in festive colors or adorned with wreaths. I saw it, but J didn't.

On the way back, everything was working against us. J was in the backseat with James, who was requiring a lot of attention. It was snowing pretty steadily, so visibility wasn't great. It wouldn't have been easy coming from the north, and we were coming from the south. Without being able to see it myself, I indicated to J when we were around the right group of buildings. She craned her neck out the back window and then shouted excitedly:

"I SEE IT! I SEE THE NIPPLE!"

We definitely high-fived from the backseat to the front.