What A Load Of Pollock

A friend and I are customers in a shop, mostly just doing the tourist thing. Someone’s kids are sprinting around the store doing a hide-and-seek kind of game around the shelves. They’re noisy but not destroying anything, so I’d count that as a small blessing for the staff.

Friend: “Hey, let’s get lunch after this. My stomach is starting to gnaw at me.”

I grab my phone and use it to Google food places nearby, and we find a fish place with pretty good ratings. We’re kind of gathered around my phone, looking at their online menu.

Me: “Their parmesan pollock looks pretty good…”

Kid’s Voice: “Pollock!”

I look up, surprised, as one of the kids goes sprinting through the store yelling “pollock” loudly like he just learned a new swear word. My friend snorts in amusement, and I shrug. It doesn’t take two minutes for the other kids in the store to take up the new word.

Friend: “I guess it does kind of sound like a word you’d say when you stub your toe…”

I snicker.

Apparently, the kids’ mom thinks so, too, because she storms over to us while we stand in line and starts berating us for “teaching children bad words”.

Me: “Ma’am, I didn’t teach your children any bad words.”

Mother: “Then why are they yelling that word all over the store?”

Me: “Because they probably don’t know what it means, just that it sounds like it might be a bad word?”

Mother: *Crossing her arms* “If it’s so harmless, then maybe you should explain the word.”

She has a smirk as if she thinks she has caught me in a lie and I’m going to fumble with the explanation.

Me: *Rolling my eyes* “Fine. It’s a fish.”

Mother: *Blank stare* “Excuse me?”

Me: “A pollock is a member of the cod family.”

Her blank stare continues.

Me: “Cod. You know, like codfish? We’re going to a fish restaurant, and I want to try it.”

Mother: *Suspiciously* “If it’s called cod, then why did you call it a pollock?”

I open my phone and show her.

Me: “Because it’s called pollock on the menu.”

The woman scowled at my phone for a long time and then turned and stomped away, muttering about made-up words to hide swear words.

My friend and I paid for our items and left the store, still occasionally hearing a child’s voice yell, “Pollock!” The fish, swear word or not, tasted great, by the way.