This is Part 4, the final questions in an interview series by Jen at Stay-At-Home Motherdom.
If you missed it, you can read Part 1 here or Part 2 here or Part 3 here.

(4) What's the difference between flotsam and jetsam?

Oh, dear! This is one of those mysterious interview questions. It's saying something. What is it saying? Something like, "You're a creative person. Wow me." Or, "I'm going to analyze your answer for some deep hidden meaning." These questions are always nerve wracking.

So, I read the question and thought, "It's all detritus to me, but 'flotsam' sounds floaty and 'jetsam' sounds jettisoned. " So, I looked it up, and my etymological instincts were right on, without ever having taken Latin. (In your face, dead languages and ex-boyfriends who traumatized me with them!) It turns out that flotsam is the floating (see how sharp I am!) wreckage of a ship, and jetsam is something that is cast overboard (jettisoned) to lighten the load of a ship in distress.

But the most important thing that one can know about the words flotsam and jetsam are that I first encountered them at around about the worst time in my life: junior high school. "Flotsam and Jetsam" is the title of one of the chapters (ok, Chapter 9) in The Two Towers, Book II of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy. To say that I was obsessed with this fantasy series as a child is an understatement. One of my deepest regrets in life is that the current set of movies were not made when I was at the height of my love for the books, because a life-sized cardboard cutout of Orlando Bloom would have been just the thing to set off the poster of Michael J. Fox over my bed, assuming, that is, that we live in an alternate universe where Orlando Bloom and Michael J. Fox would have been about the same age and desirability in the 80's.

Now that I think of it, the "Flotsam and Jetsam" chapter actually does include both important flotsam (the "pipe-weed" from the Shire that Merry and Pippin find in the wreckage of Isengard) and jetsam (the palantír Wormtongue throws from Orthanc). Cool!

And so whatever the intent of this last question, the answer now clearly says, "I am a geek."