THE MANLY ARTS, PASSED FROM FATHER TO SON

Herman's dietary routine, translated into pidgin BASIC, which I haven't used since 1982 so forgive the lapses:

1 REM V=the amount of semidigested cat food that'll be coming up Herman's esophagus if he keeps eating stuff that is obviously NOT a food any other cat on the planet would eat
2 REM B=our budget for nice things
5 LET V=0
7 LET B=50
10 INPUT "Has Herman eaten his insanely expensive veterinary cat food?", F$
20 IF F$="Y" THEN GOTO 40
30 IF F$="N" THEN GOTO 10
40 INPUT "What else has Herman eaten?", E$
50 IF E$="DEAD LEAF" THEN LET V=V+10
60 IF E$="KETCHUP" THEN LET V=V+15
70 IF E$="TOENAIL CLIPPING" THEN LET V=V+20
80 IF E$="SHOELACE" THEN LET V=V+35
90 IF V<20 THEN GOTO 40
100 PRINT "GAAAAAAAAACK"
110 LET B=B-10
120 GOTO 10
130 END

Next week I'll get to work on a subroutine to calculate the free time lost to cleaning up the copious by-products of Herman's reverse peristalsis. Which brings me to the meaning of the title of this post.

Like many three-year-olds, Beast is a most observant little tyke and is absorbing information every waking moment. Her Awesomeness and I are aware of this when it comes to things like obviously blue language and behave accordingly, but when it comes to descriptions of digestive matters we revert to collegiate form.

Result: Beast now knows several synonyms for "vomit", including gack, puke, hurl, barf, boof, and toss cookies. Which I maintain is as it should be for the lad, because a young fellow is not considered eligible for a Guy Card unless he knows at least 50 synonyms for praying to the porcelain god, and at six Beast is well on his way.

Heck, I just added "Cantar Oaxaca" to my extensive synonyms list this very evening.