The Circuitous Path

Years ago, when my son was in nursery school, I became friendly with the mother of one of his classmates. She was the nicest woman, but one thing stood out about her. Her vocabulary. She had a way of saying things, that were thought provoking. I described my children as being total opposites. She said her children were "on opposite ends of a continuum that contained many variables". Years later, I described college move-in day as grueling. She said it was a "war story... that would be embellished over the years, become humorous and be passed down as family history, to our grandchildren". Last year, when my sister told her that she ran around all day doing errands, she said, "I guess you took the circuitous path". For some reason, hearing a word, is different than seeing a word. My sister called me and said that she was looking up the word circuitous and could not find it. I went to my dictionary and started searching....ser, sir, sar. Then a light bulb went off in my head! Circuitous, like circuit, as in circle. A round path. When I called her to tell her I found the word, we couldn't stop laughing. We felt so dumb. Just this weekend, my sister and I were talking to a cousin from out of town. He said he took the circuitous way to the restaurant we were in. We both started giggling and he looked at us, as if we were crazy. We then explained why we found that word so amusing. He said that from now on, every time he said circuitous, he  would think of us.