Chibi Agnes Gets Colloquial

  This story takes place a long time ago when Agnes was a little girl with thick glasses who had difficulty understanding colloquialisms as well as many other things.  There is a word for people like Agnes, and that word is naive.

  Agnes always wanted to know what something meant, especially if it made other people laugh.  Agnes liked to laugh and liked even more to make other people laugh.  Sometimes, she would repeat something someone else said that was funny.  So it was important to have lots of funny things to say.

  One of the things Agnes' mother frequently said was, "I'll tell you when you're older."  A lot of times this was said after something funny had happened that Agnes didn't understand.  She would tug on her mother's sleeve and say, "What's so funny mommy?" 

  Inevitably, the answer would be, "I'll tell you when you're older."

  One day, Agnes saw her birth certificate.  It had her parents' race listed on it.  She was surprised to see that her father was Caucasian.  "I didn't know Daddy was CaucAsian," she said.

  "What race did you think he was?" asked her mother.

  "White," said Agnes, "I didn't know we were Asian."

  Many years later when Agnes was in Junior High School, she started learning about colloquialisms.  Things like, "Nipping at your heels" didn't really mean that someone was biting your heels, unless they really were.  In that way, colloquialisms really left something to be desired. 

  When Agnes became an adult, the first thing she said to her mother was, "Okay, I'm older now, what is it that you haven't been telling me?"

  "What are you talking about?" asked her mother.

  "You kept saying that you would tell me when I was older."

  Agnes' mother laughed, "I don't remember!"