The Simple Pleasure of Sharing in Cultural Silliness

Inge and Donna sang all through lunch today.  The Itsy-bitsy Spider, Sing a Song of Six Pence, London Bridge is Falling Down, etc.

Regarding the Itsy-bitsy Spider, however, I've never gotten them converted to the word, "itsy-bitsy," their preferred pronunciation being, "insy-binsy."  If I sing it the "right" way, they correct me.  So I've just kind of given up.  It's not really important anyway, right?  I think they can still grow up to be reasonably stable adults.

Today at lunch I asked Inge what insy-binsy meant?  She said it meant spider.  Donna laughed at that, so I asked Donna what it meant.  She giggled and shrugged her shoulders.

I explained, "The way I learned it, the words are itsy-bitsy, and that means little tiny.  But, "I continued, in kind of a puzzled sort of tone, "I'm not sure what insy-binsy means."

Hmm, that got them thinking a minute, but then they started in singing once more. 

Joe was getting his tomato sauce out of the canner in the kitchen, and he piped up from the other room, "Down came Duane and washed the spider out.  Hey, who's Duane?"

Then he continued, with his particular brand of silliness, "Knock knock."

Without missing a beat, the girls responded, "Who's there?"

I was getting ready to give what I thought was a very silly and unrelated pun. 

But Joe beat me to it, "Duane in Spain stays mainly in the plain."

I love that we have all this shared cultural literacy upon which to draw.  That little pun, which totally cracked me up, is only funny because of the movie, My Fair Lady.  It wouldn't make a whit of sense otherwise.  But becasue Joe and I share a background of that song, and that musical, he could grab onto that little pun and run with it.  And I got to enjoy it, even if I didn't get to say if first.  I probably enjoyed it more, knowing that we were thinking alike, even though it was obscure.

Shared culture, it's a beautiful thing.

I'd be curious to know whether any other readers saw it coming, too?  I have an inking that anyone who reads a blog this well,... confused, strange, unusual, obscure, random,... on a regular basis, just might share the same cultural silliness, too.