A Squatch by Any Other Name

Early in our life together, MathMan wasn't so comfortable saying the word vagina. True, it wasn't something I dropped into casual conversation either. Thinking back, vagina didn't come up that much. What was there to say really? Besides, we're creatures of our time and culture. Those days were different.

Back in the modest 1990s, the media, when met with the need to report on sexual matters, took the careful route. Anchors referred delicately to Monica Lewinsky's stained dress and made oblique references to cigars.

Oh and remember when the nation got all oogey about references to Clarence Thomas's artistic placement of a pubic hair on a Coke can?

Different times.

It's quite easy to see why MathMan felt compelled to invent his own word.

What's questionable perhaps is the word he invented.

The word, the origins of which remain a mystery to all but the most distinguished etymologists, is squatch. It's a weird word that has caused me to wonder on more than one occasion what in the hell must be wrong with my vagina to have inspired it.

Stop being such a narcissist, I tell myself. MathMan has seen more than one vagina. Maybe this word - squatch - is an homage to some other vagina.

Lord I hope so. I mean squatch? Is that an onomatopoeia? Or commentary on one's need to deforest?

Having daughters increased, if only slightly, the need to use the V word. I distinctly remember one such occasion when one daughter, at the age of three, lay on the floor after a bath. Her hands wandered and she proclaimed "Hey, there's a hole in me!"

My first opportunity to teach her the proper word and what did I do? I told her that was her squatch. I may have also mumbled vagina, but it got lost as she tried the word on for size. Squatch? My squatch? My squatch!

The word stuck. Became a part of our family's lexicon forever and ever.

Today American society appears less twitchy about certain words. Now it's all vaginal probe this and erectile dysfunction that. Ashley Madison, a website used by people seeking to have "discreet affairs," advertises on the radio and has its own jingle about sleeping around to "save one's sanity."

Different times.

Now even The Goldens have become more comfortable discussing vaginas and penises and the like. Put a little vodka in me and you're likely to hear me imitate my high school sex ed teacher with the lateral lisp saying vas deferens.

And yet we revert back to that word. Cling to it. Yes, we're all growing up, but we still say squatch.

Which explains why this show strikes us as so damn funny.