The other night nine year-old Iris Uber Alles ate a granola bar while watching "The Amazing Race" with her mother. I admonished her to throw away her wrapper, but she felt too lazy. She picked it up and contemplated it. "Hey, Lucy", she called to her little sister. "Lucy!" Lola looked over.
"Look," Iris said in an inviting tone. "It's Garbagey!" [Lola is a hoarder, given to collecting disposable slushee cups (the alpha one is named "Cupy"; the rest referred to indiscriminately as "Cupy Family") and paper clips (all known as "Clippy." One of the worst moments I had as a mother involved tracing our steps to recover a lost "Clippy", all the while thinking, "What kind of idiot goes to all this trouble for a frigging paper clip?")].
Lola was skeptical. Iris snaked her hand around alluringly, so that the torn granola bar wrapper caught the light. "Look, Lucy! Garbagey is shiny!"
"Give me that!" Lola demanded.
Later that night, I could hear the soft murmurs of the Sober Husband putting Lola to bed, interrupted suddenly by a terrible shout. "NO! THAT IS GARBAGEY! PUT HER BACK! SHE'S MY GARBAGEY!" The granola wrapper has become a treasured possession.
The next day I affixed Iris Uber Alles with a stern glare. "If you EVER," I hissed, "do that again, I will punish you severely. And I mean it."
Iris tried hard to keep a straight face. I upped the ante. "No videos --- and I mean no "Simpsons", too -- for a WEEK. At least. And more punishments, too."
6 comments:
That child is a genius!
Yeah, but could you really follow through on those threats, if she did it again? It certainly was a clever ploy to evade getting up to throw it away!
An amendment to comment #1: An EVIL genius! Can we put her in charge of the Chrysler/GM fiascos (fiasci?)?
That's just brilliant!!
I thought about offering to bring home a spanish speaking cousin for Cupy, keep the gene pool strong and all, but I thought maybe that might not be such a great idea.
Funny
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