My husband and I were sitting in the living room, he talking to Tarek and Christina on Flip or Flop about his issues with that glass tile backsplash and I on my laptop trying to write something. I was frustrated that I couldn’t think of a word and I couldn’t look it up, because what I knew about it was flimsy if not completely wrong. I wasn’t even 100 percent sure there was a word for this thing. But that didn’t stop me from driving everyone crazy with my obsession to find it, learn how to spell it, and use it like a boss.
“What’s the word I’m looking for,” I asked my husband.
“Oh boy, here we go,” he muttered.
“It’s like placate but in a more aggressive sense. Like someone in authority who keeps the masses under his thumb by drugging them, either literally with real drugs or figuratively, by just being a jerk. And there’s a Q in it.”
My husband just sat there, unresponsive. It’s almost like he wasn’t even trying to help me.
“It’s like what The Man does to youth to stay in control and keep everyone thinking the status quo is just fine and no one should start a revolution. And if it’s not a Q, it’s a letter in the same family, like W or B.”
“How am I supposed to know? I am The Man,” my husband said. (It’s true. He is kind of The Man now and we’re both a little upset about it.) [Read more…] about The Word I’m Looking For