We spent most of Memorial Day weekend at home, with Nigel a bit sick, camped out on the couch having a Star Wars marathon. His OW (Obsession of the Week) this week is metal, including anything in Star Wars that is metal, such as droids, and how he might build his own that will clean his room and do the cat litter.

He is also coming up with his own metallic phrases. This morning I poured us each a bowl of cereal and milk (our usual breakfast) and opened up the silverware drawer for spoons.

Nigel: Uh, plastic, because this – [holds up metal spoon] – makes bacterial galvanization.

Bacterial galvanization. I actually tried looking that up on Wikipedia to see if I could find anything about it, but the two words do not appear together under any configuration. It reminded me of when he was six and started combining words to communicate. He would say “balling snow throwing” to describe a snowball fight. “Circle chocolate cookie” was how he requested Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies. And now, at 13, he has created the phrase “bacterial galvanization.” I have given its potential meaning careful deliberation. Does it refer to bacteria in the mouth interacting with metal to form a nasty aftertaste? That’s what I’m going to go with, although I don’t notice any metallic taste from my silverware. But Nigel might.

So there you go. “Bacterial galvanization” is the aftertaste you get when you eat off cheap silverware. I’ll notify the Merriam-Webster people, but you heard it here first.