A Lesser Demon of Hell

Monday, November 07, 2011

First I would like to state - for the record - that this conversation actually happened.

Background: Emily has a day off from school. She also has a bit of a cold, so we take it easy. Or rather, I bundle her up in bed and do the billion things that must be done regardless of who is feeling well. Laundry, animal care and maintenance, lists of things of which we are running low so includes going to each human in the house and asking things like "Do you need deodorant? How about lotion?" and then writing those things down in a list in order to get in and out of the store as fast as humanly possible so I don't go buck nutty and stab the elderly who - despite my obvious corporeal presence reaching for the product- park their cart between my body and the shelf.... And I had to go to the bank to prove - once again - that I am a student and should not be charged crazy fees. This means, of course, that the teller and I  will have the long discussion again about how can I prove I am a student as I am pointing at my Visa sanctified by the Canadian government, gesticulating that I would not be standing there in front of them were I NOT a student since I would not legally be allowed to remain in the province. The same discussion I have been having for nearly six years. Which then makes me both horrified and irritated that I have malingered in my PhD program for this long and increasingly expensive vacation of doom. 

Did I mention the lingering psychic aftershocks of the full-o-blood tick removal from the cat the other day? As the other members of my family shrieked and flapped and stayed a considerable distance away while I wrestled the incredibly unhappy and sharp clawed feline AND wielded tweezers in order to maintain the slow and constant pressure required to remove tick AND tick mouth parts?  After which Terrance helpfully said: "You are going to disinfect those tweezers, right?" 

(dawn contemplating all the ways to torture terrance with unclean tweezers)

So where was I? 

Oh yes, the conversation. Once I returned home and unpacked all the requested/needed items, the child demanded Documentaries and together time. 

( oh, we are an esoteric duo, emily and dawn)

After the first one ( National Geographic: Mystery of the Crystal Skulls - don't bother, it was terrible) I called a bathroom break before  "Da Vinci :The Lost Treasure".

I am in the bathroom when this question is yelled in at me:

"MOM! Why is Calvin's teacher named Miss Wormwood?"

I sit, in silence. The child has been with me for an hour, and will be with me for second hour momentarily. I retain my right to silence and refusal to answer any non life-saving questions, such as "Mom, how do I staunch the arterial spurting of a severed jugular vein" -  for the 3 minutes I will be inside the sanctum of the bathroom. 

She yells the question again - LOUDER. 

"MOM!! WHY IS CALVIN'S TEACHER NAMED MISS WORMWOOD!!!"

On the one hand, the highbrow tone of the question pleases me.  Literary. Satirical. I am in the process of developing a fine mind out there.  On the other, I am on the GOD DAMN toilet. 

Since my silence does not cue her into the fact that I will not be answering, she begins the third scream in my general direction...at which point Terrance yells:

"EMILY - LEAVE YOUR MOTHER ALONE! SHE IS IN THE BATHROOM!"


So yes, the answer is that Wormwood is a lesser demon of hell...with a little dig at Calvin's name origin. But the other answer is No, it doesn't stop. Not even when they are 13.








0 Baleful Regards:

 
◄Design by Pocket