Yeah. It's me.
The reason I'm writing you now is because you've recently poked your evil little head back into my life. Sure, I occasionally reach into the cobweb-covered corners of my brain to figure out how many you make when there are six of you in one place. Thirty-six is easy to remember because YOU insist on being in the answer.
Anyway. My daughter turned six recently. Go ahead and laugh- I'll confront my issues with Irony later. She was given, as a gift/cruel joke, a place mat with the multiplication table chart on the back of it. And suddenly you were back in my life.
Again.
I love my sweet little girl, which is the only reason the place mat was spared a trip to the shredder. I am a merciful woman. I know. So. If we're going to live together under this one roof, I need to lay down some guidelines so that we can get along. Don't get me wrong, we do NOT have to like each other. In fact, I'm perfectly happy loathing you and using my fingers for most of our uncomfortable encounters. I have less shame now that I'm a grownup. But if I am going to hide my disdain for you in order to bestow some arithmetic confidence in my little girl...you need to respect some boundaries.
Please don't hide in recipes while I'm teaching my baby to bake. Don't mock me in the aisles of BJ's superstore when I'm trying hard to save money by buying in bulk. ( I know you and your pal Twelve like to play with my head while I'm keeping to a budget.) I'm already dealing with a piss-poor sense of direction, so maybe you could keep out of my Google Maps page, too.
In return, I will let you exist on my daughter's place mat at the dining table. I will support her as she reads off your column and encourage her to give you a fair chance. And if you break her spirit, I will not think twice before I tell her what I've known all these long years since the third grade:
You are a stupid number and it's not important to memorize your multiples.
Six, you are despicable. Worse than even Seven. And we all know he eight nine.
Regretfully,
So-so
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2 comments:
That made me smile and giggle out loud.
And the word verification I have for this comment is breadefe... weird.
Six and I got along OK...but geography was a bully to me all through school. I just read a chapter (sad, but true) to my kids at school where the kids in the class made funny responses to geography questions like, "What's the slickest country? Greece". Well, the last question was asking the capital of South Dakota. Their answer was Pierre. I THINK it was supposed to be funny because it was the only true answer on the list...but I'm not really sure, because I don't know the capital of SD...and instead of googling it right now I'm commenting on your blog. Anyway, it was an awkward moment in the read aloud today because neither the kids nor I got the joke and I was too ignorant to know why. Thanks for making me feel smart, Sis. Good for my ego.
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