My Revenge

Yesterday I’m driving around with the little ones on our usual Saturday morning errand run. The list in front of me has seven items – library 1, dry cleaners, post office, recycling center, library 2, Brake-O-Rama, and pizza – and I know we’ll be on the road for a good three hours. So it was not a good sign when, right after the dry cleaners, they started bickering in the back seat.

Little One, age 6, is in the midst of her first love affair with reading. There is this series of fairy books, two dozen or so, that she’s in the middle of reading. She’s so hooked she’ll have her nose in the book while we’re crossing the street. I have to yell at her to stop reading – me! Anyway, she brought her newest book with her this morning and was a hundred percent focused on Penny the Puppy Fairy when Patch, age 2, decided she wanted some interaction.

I allow a few minutes of back-and-forth snarling back there before I jump in with fatherly – and ineffectual – reprimands. It escalates to the point where Little One begins her sing-song:

Zip it,
Lock it,
Put it in your pocket.

And then completely ignores her little sister. Oh no you didn’t!

Patch, though, is not to be denied. She immediately parrots:

Zip it,
Lock it,
Put it in your pocket.

Which requires an echo from Little One. Which is then promptly repeated, again, by Patch. This ping-pongs for ten or twelve times, escalating in volume and emotion, until I have to step in.

In my most off-key and loud Las Vegas crooner voice, fingers snapping, I begin:

Zip it,
Lock it,
Put it in your … JACKET!

And I keep going, repeating it over and over, oblivious to the audience in the back seat.

This horrifies the girls. Whether it’s me singing, or my disturbing off-rhyme, or the fact that I’m not stopping while ignoring their pleas, I don’t know, nor do I necessarily care. But they stop, and they’re freaking out. Cries of “Daddy, please!” “No!” “Stop!” “It’s POCKET!!!” turn the Rav into an ear-splitting reverberation chamber.

I allow a few minutes of this before I am properly assured they’ve been tortured enough. I hold up my hand and put a Stern Look on my face, signaling “Enough!” Relieved, they silently agree, and all is well until we hit our next stop on the errand list.

Sometimes I think I permit all their nonsense so I can join in the fun.