BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

It is a moral imperative that parents warp their children. Now, don’t get the wrong idea here… By warp I mean teach them the basics of sarcasm, satire, and acerbic humor.

That kind of warp…

Granted, we don’t want our kids being bitterly sarcastic with us. That only serves to make the old Mark Twain bromide about putting them in a barrel and corking the hole in the side when they hit sixteen sound like a truly excellent idea. But, by the same token, if you have a kid who is packing around an IQ that has the local chapter of MENSA handing them pencils and brightly colored bookmarks as incentives to join up, then you had best seize the moment and teach them about sardonic humor, otherwise they’ll just end up being boring people with big IQ’s. Trust me, I’ve met a few, and I prefer hanging out with the warped people with big IQ’s. They aren’t as… Well… Boring.

And so, this is why I warp my kid’s sense of humor at every opportunity. I want her to not be boring because the operative not portion of that trait will serve her well later in life.

Of course, you have to keep a close watch on this process and take note of when your child is properly warped; otherwise you end up with a smartass. I’ve met a few of those too. The general rule is that once you’ve put a sufficient bow in the lumber of the mind it will break free of the jig and smack you right between the eyes. This is the point when you can be truly proud of a job well done, and as of the other day, let me tell you,  I was beaming.

It was a Saturday as I recall, because E  Kay was home and it was the middle of the day. We were sitting at the table having some lunch before heading out to take care of grocery shopping and all that other jazz. As sometimes happens when the O-spring becomes a bit animated during a meal, some “foodgitives” escaped her plate. In this case, a few kernels of corn went over the wall and were trying to make their way across the tablecloth. At a point such as this it is the job of one of the parents to gently remind the kid that the food should go from plate to fork to mouth without any furniture or lap detours along the way. This is especially important if she ever wants to be invited out to a nice restaurant on a date (which is something we will allow her to start doing approximately 20 years after I die). This also goes along with the not chewing with your mouth open, not blowing bubbles in your milk, and not building scale replicas of Devil’s Tower out of your mashed potatoes.

Anywho, since I was sitting next to her, with E K on the other side of the table, it was my duty to point this out. Which I did… Of course, I then promptly slopped corn off my own plate to join hers in a bid for culinary escape.

Now I had a critical situation. I had just done exactly what I had just finished telling the child she should be careful not to do. Since I had yet to receive a sign as to the present “warpedness level” of the O-spring’s mind, I decided to punt.

Pointing at the freshly emancipated corn kernels I said, “Look what you made me do.”

Without missing a beat the child looked across the table and said, “Yeah Mommy, look what you made Daddy do.”

E Kay’s brow furrowed with understandable confusion. She shook her head and replied, “I’m way over here. How did I make Daddy do anything?”

It was at this very moment I knew the O-spring’s brain was ready to take on the world, because once again without a single pause she answered, “That’s simple. You used your evil powers.”

Even the Evil Redhead did a spit-take on that one.

Yeah… My work here is done. 😛

More to come…

Murv

“Awww, just shoot ’em,” Karen said.

It was an interesting response to spoiled milk, but hey, we all have our own take on life, correct? What? You don’t understand what I’m talking about? Well, I suppose I can see where the above might be a little confusing. How about if I back up a bit and see if I can explain…

So, I have these two girlfriends…

No, not like that… Sheesh… Get your minds out of the gutter, please. What I am saying is that they are girls, and they are my friends, therefore they are my girlfriends. And, since they are my girlfriends we do girlfriend stuff… You know, we sit around drinking coffee (or soda, or water, or nothing) and generally gossip about whatever comes to mind.

Well, that’s as far as I take it, anyway, because I just have to draw a line in the sand when it comes to shoe shopping, painting my nails, or getting all googly eyed over Antonio Bandera Pitt DiCapriGereFord-McWhoever. Not that there’s anything at all wrong with that. In fact, it’s healthy in a lot of ways. However, I’d much rather get all googly eyed over E K. (I’d
throw some actress’ names out there but I’m still recovering from the last beating The Evil Redhead gave me, and I’m not sure how much my insurance can handle right now…)

But, back to my girlfriends. We’ll call them Karen and Mindy. Not their real names for reasons of anonymity, of course. Also not my original pick for pseudonyms either. I actually wanted to call them Karen and Brenda, but girlfriend #2 didn’t like Brenda, so I have to call her Mindy. She was almost Muffy, but we won’t go there. Although, when she shows up doing the whole sweater arms tied around her neck, sunglasses on top of her head, and Star-make-a-bucks cup in her hand, she definitely looks like a Muffy… Or even a Buffy.

But, Buffy starts with a B, and that makes it too close to Brenda, so I think we’ll just stick with Mindy. Of course, after she reads this we might end up calling her Miffy.

I guess we’ll see.

Now that we have that settled… (sigh)

So anyway, here’s the thing. I only get to see Karen and Mindy for two weeks out of each calendar year. One straight week during the summer, and 5 consecutive Saturdays during the winter. I’m sure you are wondering why this is… I mean, if I were you I would certainly be wondering.

Well, I’ll tell you… It’s like this. Karen and Mindy are my College girlfriends, and by that I don’t mean we went to college together, because we didn’t. You see, twice each year I take the O-Spring out to one of the local community college campuses for “College for Kids” classes.

Yeah, as I’ve rambled on about before, my kid is utterly brilliant. Yes, I’m sure yours is too, but mine is more brillianter. (Yes, I know that’s grammatically incorrect. Remember, I’m a word on paper putting type person what make those things with words and stuff what tell things like… umm.. stories.. yeah… that’s it… So, I’m a professional… Therefore you should NOT try bending the English language over the dining room table at home without proper training. It’ll just get messy.)

Either way, back to this college thing… My kid is utterly brilliant, and so is Mindy’s kid and Karen’s grandkid. Therefore, because of this whole “College for Kids” thing it makes us college friends. Not “The Big Chill” sort of college friends, mind you, but college friends nonetheless.

Of course, once again I can tell that y’all are wondering how this all came about. Well, it’s pretty simple, actually. Parents of gifted kids will often seek one another out and come together to share notes. Important things like, “Who should I call when my kid clones the neighbor’s dog using only a PlaySkool Pretend Doctors Kit and a Dora The Explorer juice tumbler?” or “So, how do you handle it when your kid builds a supercollider out of Legos and aluminum foil and creates a God particle in your living room?”

See what I mean?  Really important crap…

And so, anyway, this friendship developed between Karen, Mindy, and yours truly. There’s even a particular corner on the second floor of the Science West building where we park ourselves around a table and chit chat – remember, I said no to the shopping – while we wait for the kids to finish their classes each day. This corner actually used to be my special quiet place. I would take my notebook computer with me, sit on the back side of the table, and write (we writers do that sort of stuff.) However, one day Mindy found me and, well, whenever I am on the campus I simply haven’t been able to get any work done since. She won’t allow it. But, that’s just part of Mindy’s charm.

And, yes, you guessed it – as it happens, this particular August week it is “College for Kids” week, and yeah, you guessed it again, I’ve been visiting with Karen and Mindy. That’s where guns and spoiled milk come into play.

There we were, talking about fast food and airports. (Hey, I said we talk about whatever comes to mind…) Anywhow, I had just finished telling about my bad Fuddrucker’s experience, how they had ponied up a gift card, and that I was impressed by their integrity. Mindy became wide-eyed and fidgety which was a sure sign she had her own story to tell.

Well, as signs go this one was pretty clear.

“So I was looking over the counter,” Mindy declared. “And I could see that the girl was using expired milk for my latte…”

Karen piped up. “Did’ja shoot her?”

Mindy looked horrified. “No.”

“You shoulda just shot ‘er,” Karen reiterated.

“Anyway,” Mindy continued. “I told her, ‘don’t use that in my latte, it’s expired,’ so she put it back in the refrigerator. You know she was going to use it for someone else, but since I was standing there watching she didn’t use it in mine.”

“Yeah,” I said, not entirely sure where this was going.

Mindy shook her head in an animated fashion as her eyes grew wider still. “Can you imagine that? Expired milk!”

“Was she running with scissors too?” I asked.

“No.”

“Okay, just wondering.”

“Shoulda just shot her,” Karen offered.

“So anyway,” Mindy said, ignoring Karen’s advice. “I kept watching and she started to put 2% milk in my latte. I mean, come on, 2% milk?!”

Karen grunted, “That’s what guns are for, you know…”

“So I said, ‘no, no, no you don’t’,” Mindy explained. “I only take skim milk in my latte. And do you know what she said?”

I shook my head. “Nope. I wasn’t there.”

“She said it was really skim milk, it just said 2% on it.”

“I’m tellin’ you, you shoulda just shot her,” Karen grumbled.

“So, what did you do?” I asked.

“I stepped away from the counter and called Star-Make-A-Bucks corporate office. I have them on my cell phone speed dial, of course…”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” I mused aloud.

Unfazed, Mindy continued. “…I told them that I was standing right there at the airport and that their employee was trying to use spoiled milk in my latte.”

“Awww, just shoot ’em,” Karen said.

I had always figured Karen for the non-violent type, I mean, what with her being pretty laid back. After all, she didn’t even object over her pseudonym like Mindy had, know what I mean? But her grumbling at this particular moment definitely wasn’t bearing that out.

“I couldn’t shoot her,” Mindy objected.

Karen sighed. “Why not? You forget your gun?”

“I don’t have a gun.”

“See,” Karen said, clucking her tongue. “There’s the problem.”

“What do you think, Murv?” Mindy appealed.

I shrugged. “Karen has a point. If you don’t have a gun you can’t shoot the girl with the expired milk.”

“See there,” Karen announced, then lowered her voice to a grumble. “M R agrees with me… You West county people make me tired. I think when I get home I’m just going to sit in my chair.”

After that, we talked about squirrels. Sounds like a good time, eh?

All I can say is I’m glad our kids are brilliant, because I think maybe the three of us have gone the way of the expired milk.

More to come…

Murv