Tuesday, April 6, 2010

English



English

“Am I speaking English?” I asked my kids. I had told them all to clean their mess in the living room at least ten times. They were playing a game. Again. Do I have to yell every time I want something done? I refused to clean that ridiculous jungle of a mess. A mess that looked like a hurricane a tornado and a tsunami had all come through my living room and turned it into a disaster area.

I looked over at my kids who had gotten distracted from the task at hand again and wondered if I should get all of their ears checked. Or perhaps they all needed cat scans to see if their brains processed language correctly. “Seriously kids! Am I speaking a dead language? Sanskrit perhaps? No? Latin? Well, then am I speaking a foreign language that has no resemblance to English? Chinese? Arabic? No? A Native American language then? Navaho? No? Okay. Well, then STOP GOOFING OFF AND CLEAN THIS LIVING ROOM RIGHT NOW!”

THE END

7 comments:

RHYTHM AND RHYME said...

How many times have those immortal words been spoken?
I well remember when my 3 were young it seemed like they didn't know or understand what I said, especially when asked to tidy their bedrooms.

Love your write,
Take care.
Yvonne.

Hart Johnson said...

My husband goes with 'Are your legs broken?' with some regularity. I more typically appeal to carrot and stick methods "no sleepovers if it's not clean" (since my least cooperative family member seems to never sleep at home on the weekends.)

Arlee Bird said...

Kids definitely are very selective in their hearing -- they hear what they want to hear. Cute post, but real life.
Lee
Blogging From A to Z April Challenge

Anonymous said...

I could have written this one! :) I think we've all been there.

Natasha said...

Were you listening in at my place?
I end up having to resort to threats to get anything done, because the kids don't respond to English, Hindi, Tamil or Bengali.

~ Rayna

Raquel Byrnes said...

I asked my kids that same question and my smart alleck daughter responded that I had in fact only given off high-pitched dolphin squeaks...she assumed I was singing and left me along. Nice.

Marjorie said...

@ Yvonne- Probably too many times to count

@ Tami- It seems to work sometimes with my kids. Mostly they wait for me to lose my cool.

@ Lee- I still have selective hearing. Gee, I wonder where my kids get it?

@ Melody- It's pretty universal

@ Natasha- Wanna trade and see which of ours are worse?

@ Raquel- Ha! I tell My daughter Roxanne to stop impersonating a dolphin all the time.