It skips a gender

When I was a wee lass (side note - when I was younger I had SEVERAL people ask me my name and think I said Lassie instead of Lacy. They also thought it was funny that my name was Lassie. People can be really lame.) I was what you may call a Tom Boy. I generally played better with boys in a social setting rather than girls. Girls are mean. They really, really are.

Naturally on the playground there was always roughhousing and running around and playing "war" and "cowboys and Indians" and "cops and robbers" etc. My role in these games always shifted, as they generally do for all the kids involved. Sometimes your the bad guy, sometimes your the good guy but there is almost ALWAYS guns and weapons of mass destruction involved.

While I was EXCELLENT at running around and hiding and strategy (lets hide under the tires!) I did have one VERY pronounced shortcoming that made me a semi-outcast in these games.

I can't make the noises.

I can't make the sound of a gun or fighter engine or tank or motorboat or speeding race car or ANYTHING of the sort. At least not convincingly.

Where the boys would make noises that sound exactly like what they are portraying and typed out look like "PSHHHHHBEERRRRRBAM" my noises were sad little "pow pow" and "bang bang" and in the case of all motorized vehicles "vroom vroom".

My male friends attempted occasionally to teach me the cool noises. When I asked HOW they made them they would normally shrug and just say "I dunno" and go on making their fighter planes drop massive nuclear weapons on my little ponies or Bar*bies or whatever.

Thankfully during the outside games they normally allowed me to play along despite my obvious handicap and instead gave me silent roles. I OFTEN played "spy".

The other night Micah and I were sitting on the couch when suddenly I heard a VERY familiar sound coming from the play pen. I looked around and saw Will crawling out of his corner making, I kid you not, race car noises. VERRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMMMM is what it would look like.

I looked at Micah and asked "How does he know how to make that sound?"

Micah's response was a shoulder shrug and "I dunno".