Conversations with a Five-Year-Old: The Pain and the Pedant

MOTHER: Please go wash your hands before dinner. Your fingers are covered in marker. I don't think you want ink in your food.

CHILD: Aw, man.

MOTHER: What?

CHILD: I have to wash my hands again? I just washed my hands at lunch time.

MOTHER: Yes, you need to wash your hands more than once in a day. Go wash your hands.

CHILD: Hmph.

CHILD stalks slowly off toward the bathroom, muttering to himself.

MOTHER: Oh, there she goes again. Your mother. Always trying to take care of you and keep you safe and healthy. Always trying to keep you from doing things like eating food flavored with ink from a marker. She's such a pain.

CHILD (whispers): In the B-U-T.

MOTHER: What did you just say, young man?

CHILD: Nothing.

MOTHER: You're missing a T.

CHILD: What?

MOTHER: Butt, as in your bottom, rear, posterior, that thing you sit upon, is spelled B-U-T-T. You mean to say I am a pain in the B-U-T-T.

CHILD: Oh, right! I always get those confused.

MOTHER to FATHER: We need to work on his ability to spell insults.


More conversations.