Teasing

“I'm not going to retaliate.” I could tell from my son's tone that he'd been practicing this speech for a long time. He delivered the statement in a very calm voice and enunciated each word clearly.

“What does retaliate mean?” the little girl across the table asked. (This threw a bit of a wrench in his script.)

“It means when you tease me, I'm not going to tease you back. (We'd had the talk about how when a girl teases you, it means she likes you. He was horrified...)

“I didn't tease you.” There was a degree of self-righteous persecution that was hard to fake, even for a seven-year old girl.

“Yes you did.” He was not backing down.

“When?”

“You called me Dead John.”

“I didn't call you that! I was going to call your dad, John.” (apparently in the heat of not teasing. “Dad John, sound like dead John. Either that or she has some deep seated anger management issues.)

For a second, he was rather flustered because she was not following his memorized script... “Why?”

“Because he calls me Lisa and my name is not Lisa!” (She was completely correct there. But since I can not remember names, this made perfect sense to me.

That comment got the attention of the rest of the girls at the table. Suddenly, things did not look good for my son and me.

After a long year, my daughter and her friends were graduating from being Daisies to full-fledged Brownies. It had been a cool ceremony. My wife had been stressing over the ceremony since she was the Daisy leader. The bridging ceremony was a full-fledged family thing and my son and I were both told (I felt rather harshly and unnecessarily) to be on our best behavior. That was the reason my son was not going to “retaliate”. “Lisa” is Miss “the putz” Ann's daughter (Miss Ann apparently has unresolved jealously issues. Not more than a week after she saw all the attention my daughter got with her near fatal knee injury (see the previous blog), Miss Ann decided to break her own foot. All I heard was something about standing on a table to change a light bulb (I'm going with a freak-table dancing accident.). At her age, she should know bones are brittle and don't heal very fast. Being a concerned friend, I've made sure my daughter reminds her of that very often.). So, over the last several months, they've developed a relationship that can only be described as married. Their bickering (as described by my wife) is so cute.

So, this was why my son was carefully explaining that he was not going to retaliate. The problem was, he was using a combination of fourth grade and minecraft vocabulary and Lisa was listening with first grade vocabulary and chocolate cupcake sugar high. So, even though they were actually saying the same thing and agreeing, neither one realized and the “conversation” was quickly heading toward a nuclear meltdown on both parts (it was like they'd been married for years.)

To re-cap, my son and I were surrounded by a troop of girls. For the past hour, the leaders had carelessly been loading them up with sugar. (Maybe it hadn't been a full hour, but I've learned, when you are surrounded by women, it's always best to assume the worst.) We were both on our best behavior. And we'd just been sold out by Lisa...

“Her name is not Lisa,” one of the girls said.

“Yeah,” the other Daisies chimed in.

There was a feral glint in their seven-year old eyes. Being the mature adult, I knew it was time to diffuse the situation. Never the less, I asked, “How do you know?”

“Because,” they all said at the same time.

“Let me see your driver's license.”

“I don't drive!”

“Why not?”

“I'm only SEVEN!”

“What are you waiting for? You're going to need a driver's license to get a job.”

“I'm too young to work.”

“Then, how do I know your name is not Lisa?”

“My mom said it's not.”

I was going to follow up with her mom is not a very good source since she's a nurse, likes sunburn and dances on tables without proper safety equipment, but my son had taken the opportunity to escape and was playing with the other Daisey brothers. I followed his cue as I saw Miss Ann limping over to see what the problem was. After all, I was on my best behavior.