By: Keith Kappes
Columnist
Carter County Times
In these times of scary or silly or sad conspiracy theories, I find myself searching for information on the LOC movement.
Outside of my immediate family, I haven’t heard anyone mention it or even ask what it means when they hear me use the term, LOC. I have determined for certain that it is not an alternate spelling of “lock” because each letter is pronounced, L-O-C.
That does not make it an “acronym”, where initial letters are used to spell a new word like WAC from Women’s Army Corps. Instead, it is called an “initialism” where each letter is pronounced separately like N-F-L or S-O-B.
As for LOC as a potential word, dictionary.com tells me that it is an abbreviation for “location” and/or “locative”.
My dear wife claims that LOC is a phrase that I invented to poke fun at her humble upbringing. On more than one occasion, she has demanded that I remove LOC from my vocabulary, sort of a “cease and desist” order.
To her dismay and my joy, we have been married for 49 years and I now require hearing aids if I really want to hear everything she utters. Hearing aid batteries don’t last very long, I’ve found, happily.
But back to the mystery of LOC. I’m been saying it for years and have yet to hear from the FBI or the CIA so it must be harmless. My father has been gone for many years so perhaps I can blame him. The law says you can’t slander a deceased person.
Dad didn’t like leftovers. He insisted on fresh food at each mealtime. Anything that remained was stashed in the fridge or freezer for Mom and us kids to eat when he worked out of town.
In addition to his charm, good looks, wit, and intelligence, I also inherited his dislike of recently-eaten food choices. So, in a burst of creativity several years ago, I came up with “leftover city”, shortened to LOC, to express my dislike of leftovers.
If my parents and her parents were children of the Depression, then my sweet wife must be a grandchild of the Depression. She never throws away any edible food.
So, when something shows up on the table again within a couple of days, she smiles knowingly and proudly serves it. I mutter “LOC” and then eat the damned stuff. Happy wife, happy life.
Keith Kappes can be reached at keithkappes@gmail.com
