"You know, the hangy thing"

About 2 months ago, on a visit to my parents, Aaron and I were sitting in my sister's car while she and my dad were making a quick stop at Staples, and a strange conversation began when Aaron yawned.

"I thought you had your tonsils out" I said.

He looked at me funny and replied "I did"

"Then why can I still see your tonsils?" I asked.

"What the hell are you talking about?" he responded.

"I can see your tonsils. You know, the hangy thing. It's there at the back of your throat."

And that's where the laughter began. He informed me that the "hangy thing" weren't what tonsils are, that they were on the sides of your throat, that there were two of them (hence tonsils being plural) and he had indeed had them removed. I insisted that the "hangy thing" was your tonsils. I mean, how can I be 26 and be so grossly uninformed?

So when my dad and sister returned to the car, we asked them what the "hangy thing" in the back of your throat is called.

"Tonsils" my sister replied. Then Aaron started laughing even harder.

"Fine" she said, "I'll call my boyfriend" (who is pre-med, so we thought perhaps he would know). Unfortunately he didn't know what the hangy thing was called, but he did inform us that it was not your tonsils. So my sister hung up and commented about how she couldn't believe that she was 19 and didn't know that the "hangy thing" wasn't your tonsils. I reminded her that, hey, I'm 26 and didn't know either.

We decided that we had to find the source of this mis-information, so when we went home we asked our mom "Hey, you know the hangy thing in the back of your mouth? What is that called?"

"Tonsils" she replied. Ahhh...we have located the source. We all laughed because what of what she said when we informed her of the mis-information she had been spreading: "I can't believe I'm in my fifties and didn't know that isn't your tonsils".

It was dinner time so no one googled it and the conversation was forgotten until the next morning when all of the sudden it came to me. "Uvula" I said aloud to Aaron, who responded, "well, screw you too". He obviously had forgotten the conversation, or at least wasn't thinking about it at that very moment.

"That's what the hangy thing is - a uvula. I remember reading about it in the comments of a blog. See? I'm not just wasting time reading blogs, I'm learning too." So it was decided that the "hangy thing" was the uvula and we moved on.

Fast forward to two weeks ago. We're at the concert with my sister and her boyfriend (Mr. Pre-Med) and he says "Epiglottis". We all looked at him funny, and he says, "That's what the hangy thing is called".

We all fell into laughter, and informed him that he was wrong. Later, though, I had the nagging feeling that maybe I was wrong, but that feeling only lasted for a few minutes. Then last night, as I lay awake in bed, I started thinking about it again. So I googled it this morning. The "hangy thing" is definitely your uvula, and your epiglottis is the flap that covers the trachea during swallowing so that food does not enter the lungs.

See, you can totally learn things on blogs.