"One if By Land, Two if By Sea," is not code for "I'm pregnant with twins."

My mom tries to constantly remind me that not everyone has a degree in history like I do. This usually comes after I yell at someone on Jeopardy for giving such a blatantly wrong answer (Abraham Lincoln did not sign the Declaration of Independence, Queen Victoria didn't sponsor Christopher Columbus on his expedition etc.) I think I'm pretty good at remembering that not everyone studied my favorite subject. I'm the first one to admit that I don't know as much about history as I probably should. But, I do expect people to have some sort of basic familiarity with history. This leads me to my story...

I bought a cute, new shirt a few days ago at Old Navy. It's a red and navy striped shirt that says, "One if By Land, Two if By Sea." A nautical design and a historical theme, how can you go wrong with that? You can't! I had a bunch of errands to run today and I thought it would be the perfect time to debut my new, nautical, nerdy shirt. One of the many stops on my itinerary was Starbucks. (shocker) I reached the front of the line and the barista at the register read my shirt. Then the following conversation took place:

Barista: "What does your shirt say?"
Me: "One if By Land, Two if By Sea."
Barista: "Is that about babies?"
Me: "No ?!?" ( Thinking, "What the fudge?")
        "It's from the Revolutionary War." (Now I'm starting to think that means my shirt makes me look pregnant.)
Barista: "I don't get it."
Barista 2: "It's a war saying."
Me: "It's how the colonists planned to signal to each other. If the British were coming by land they were going to hang one lantern in the church. If they came by sea -" (I was cut off)
Barista: "Oh I thought it was about twins. I have twins. Like a one for two thing... I didn't get it."
Barista 2: "Can you just give her, her coffee? This lady wants to leave."

I walked away from the counter and stood by the bar to wait for my drink. What just happened? Why wasn't anyone else there with me to witness this? Did I really just have to explain that a famous, historical, American phrase was not about babies? Why didn't the phrase sound even remotely familiar to this lady? I didn't expect her to say anything about Paul Revere, Boston, Old North Church, how many lanterns there were, Lexington and Concord, militia ... but a vague understanding would have been good with me. I'm sure if she had asked me if the shirt was about pirates, Jack Sparrow, or even the Loch Ness Monster I probably would have given her a bit of a stink face but golly, that would have been closer than babies! Babies?! Holy Smokes! That barista should have let me finish with my history lesson. She could have used a refresher course with JHistory Girl!

(No babies!)