Over the weekend we had a house guest, a friend of Kate’s named Alex we had agreed to watch while his family was out of town. Friday night we took the kids out for Mexican food and then bowling. In the car in the way to dinner, we were talking a bit about Kate’s school and (as it often does) the phrase “hippy school” came up. That triggered the following exchange in the the back seat:

Alex: Is Chris a hippy?

Kate: Chris? No, he’s a punk.

Alex: Oh yeah, well I’m a pimp!

Nicole and I cracked up, Alex being a 10 year old white boy with a lisp and all. Oh yeah, a pimp indeed. So I asked him if he knew what a pimp was and he admitted that he didn’t. At this point I had to stop and consider my options. I didn’t want to explicitly tell Alex what it was all about, as I have no idea what his parents may have told him about sex and I didn’t want him running home to say, “Mom, I learned about pimping this weekend!” I finally setttled on, “Pimps are people who make money by exploiting women. They are not cool guys and you really don’t want to be one.” This seemed to satisfy Alex and there was no more talk of pimping that night.