Eating Kids

Snarky-Pants: I can’t decide if I want to be a robot or an alien for Halloween.

Mom: (pointing to picture of alien) That’s pretty cool.

Lumpy: I want to be Lenin for Halloween.

Mom: Lenin??

Lumpy: Yea, Lenin – he’s a bad guy.

Mom: Who is Lenin? What doe he look like?

Lumpy: I said he’s a bad guy – he’s red.

Princess-Know-it-All: (Laughing) That’s funny because Lenin was a big communist guy.

Snarky-pants: Wasn’t he from one of the wars – like World War whatever?

Lumpy: He’s from Star Wars.

Mom: Lenin is from Star Wars?!?!?

(Editor’s note: You can’t make this stuff up – I have no idea if he’s aware of a secret communist plot, but it definitely bears some research!

Princess Know-It-All: May I be excused?

Mom: Sure

(Exit Princess Know-It-All, Stage Right)

Sounds of something falling down the stairs

Mom: Are you allright down there?

Princess Know-It-All: Yes, I just slipped on the stairs.

Snarky-Pants: Yea, I always fall on those stairs, they’re too round. They shouldn’t be allowed!

Snarky-Pants: We should get an elevator, the stairs are right over my closet, we just could cut a hole and slide it in. Or a fireman pole, that would be cool!

Dad: Yea, we’ll get right on that… Only we should put in a secret door where you need to pull on Beefoven’s head first.

Skeezix: Who’s Beefoven?

(Editor’s Note: Princess Know-It-All was lying in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, or she would have surely pointed out that it was a bust of William Shakespeare, not Beefoven.)

We sit down to eat dinner. All of the kids are in their P.J.s, because they are sick and going right to bed after dinner. Dad is still in his suit because he has an evening meeting to attend:

Lumpy: Dad, why are you still wearing your work pajamas?

(From now on, I’ll always think of a suit as work pajamas. If I had a choice, I’d would wear these to work.)

Skeezix: What ever you do, DON’T bump into an angel cuz that means you’re dead.

Mom: What should we get Grandpa for his birthday?
Skeezix: How about an elephant?
Princess-know-it-all: No, not an elephant. It costs a lot to feed them and besides they’re very dangerous.
Princess-know-it-all: It’s because they’re so nearsighted.
Skeezix: but an elephant would be so cool!
Princess-know-it-all: No it wouldn’t be. You’d get squashed.
Snarky-pants: Well, we could get it some glasses. Like Doctor Doolittle did with the horse.
Princess-know-it-all: I don’t think too many Doctor Doolittles are practicing these days.
Skeezix starts lurching around imitating a blind, mad elephant squashing Grandpa.

Lumpy: Mom, I’m not feeling good.
Mom: What hurts?
Lumpy: My tummy hurts, and I have a fever.
Mom: oh, really?
Lumpy: yes, I think I need to watch another movie.
Mom: No, you already watched tv today.
Lumpy: But you let Skeezix watch a movie when he had a tummy ache and a fever!
Mom: do you really have a tummy ache?
Lumpy: No, I just want to watch a movie!
Mom: So you just lied! Don’t be a liar!
Lumpy (upset now): Don’t call me a lyre! A lyre is a magical instrument! (Remember, he is three years old.)
Mom: When you tell things that aren’t true, that is a lie. A person who tells lies is a liar.  Lumpy, have you been telling me lies?
Lumpy: Yes.
Mom: Then why should I let you watch a movie?
Lumpy: Because I’m a really good boy!
(I let him watch a movie. He is a really good boy.)

Lumpy: I have a life.

Mom: You have a life?

Lumpy: Yes, in my tummy.

Lumpy: You can’t cut it open, it is full of water and food.

Mom: O.K. – Do you get a tummyache?

Lumpy: No, I don’t.

Snarky-pants: And then what happens?

Lumpy: If you cut it open, all of the steam will come out.

Lumpy: But it won’t hurt, I will be O.K.

(at this point Mom & Dad give a talk on why cutting anyones tummy open is not quite a good idea)

Snarky-pants: Mom, after dinner can I buy computer? I want to go to some-website-I-forget.com.

Lumpy: I have a website.

Mom: Really, what’s it like?

Lumpy: It’s on my wall, in my room.

Snarky-pants: Is it a cool website?

Lumpy: Yea, it has the badger badger and bannanaphone.

Lumpy: It has a movie too. The one with the happy guy and the bad guy.

Mom: Why’s it on your wall?

Lumpy: It’s not like your computer.

Mom: So you have a computer on your wall?

Lumy: So my (teddy) bears can watch it.

Snarky-pants: So do I get computer, or what?

Skeezix: I want computer too.

Snarky-pants: I asked first!

Skeezix: Get off of me!

Snarky-pants: Are there French Vikings?

Princess know-it-all: They invaded England a long time ago, their King was called Willim.

Princess know-it-all: They made this tapestry about how they invaded England.

Skeezix: What’s on the tapestry?

Snarky-pants: pictures, you idiot.

Skeezix: Don’t they have special horn hats so they can headbut people?

Princess know-it-all: Vikings didn’t wear horns, they’re this big (holds hands as wide as she can above her head), you’d keel over from the weight.

Princess know-it-all: It comes from the opera. Only vikings priests wore them for ceremonial purposes. When someone made an opera they found these drawings of Viking priests with wings and horns, and gave them all them. (editors’ note: this was acually a 20 minute dissertation, but we’ve trimmed it down for your convienence….)

Snarky-pants: Every Viking has horns!

Princess know-it-all: It’s just a pop-culture thing! How would you even put horns on a helmet?

Snarky-pants: They fastened them on with screws!

We don’t know if they are french, but they’re definitely Vikings – they have horns on their hats: