Ominous

My pop taught me this word in the 6th grade. We used to drive 45 minutes every morning to my school (we lived way out in the woods and it’s a long story why I didn’t go to the local school). This was pretty much the only time I had my pop to me and we used to have long and very deep (as deep as a 12 year-old could get, anyway) conversations.

One day we crossed a bridge and noticed there was a very strange natural phenomenon happening on the lake. The lake we were crossing had wisps of fog that looked like thousands and thousands of little ghostly branches. Pop and I stopped the car to look at the phenomenon and he turned to me and said, “That’s ominous!” Being the wordy nerdy I was (and still am), I just absolutely loved the way ominous rolled off my tongue as I tried it out for the first time like a luscious strawberry. Even now, 20 years later, every time I’ve used the word ominous in his presence, I still get a belly laugh out of him.

Ominous. Doesn’t that just send chills up your spine?!

Carrie