MONKEYSAYS

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FROM THE ANNALS OF BADNESS

The Things had been at each other all day. Complaining, carping, and tattletaleing had escalated to yelling, pushing and hitting. Their errant behavior even continued in the bath as they jockeyed for position, grabbed toys, and splashed indiscriminately.

I reached one of my many breaking points.

"You know," I said. "it's like I don't even have two nice little girls anymore. What I have are two snarling biting rats."

They stopped for a minute and took stock.

Then in a low pitched snarl that reminded me of Jack Palance in Shane, One replied, "You have one rat daddy. One rat only."

And she fixed her sister with a baleful stare.

Two stared right back.

And under her breath, she hissed "That's right, there's just one rat in this house. One rat."

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I continued the conversation with One a short time later.

"Do you see how I am sitting?" I asked.

"Yes," One replied warily.

"Well in the old days, parents would take misbehaving children and put them right over their knees, right like this. Then they would whack them, with their hand, or maybe with a hairbrush, until the child cried."

One has never heard of such a thing.

"Is that true?" she asks.

"Very true," I replied. "It was called a good spanking."

One doesn't like the term.

"It is not good to hit children," she says.

"Well," I said, "that is the current thinking. But, I was wondering, do you think your behavior would improve if you were afraid of being spanked?"

"Yes," One blurts out. Then, realizing she has fallen into trap, she bolts for her room.

I hear her yelling at Two as I walk down the stairs.