We're at the beach this week. I probably won't be doing any new posting (unless something exciting happens and I can find a Cyber Cafe (if they still have such things)). I thought I'd leave you with the posts from the very first week of Cynical Dad. See you when I get back. -- Chag
Honey, What Are Finger Chingers?
Tonight Ella and I took Zoey and Zed to a Chinese buffet. Ella was going up to get Zoey's food when Zoey said, "Mommy, I want some finger chingers."We were both puzzled.
"Chicken fingers?" I asked.
"Finger chingers!" she told us.
"What do you want?" Ella asked.
"Finger chingers!" Zoey was beginning to get frustrated with her parents' lack of English comprehension.
Not knowing what to do, Ella finally said, "Honey, what are finger chingers?"
Finally, Zoey pointed to a lady at the table across from us, eating her meal with chopsticks. "Finger chingers!" she shouted.
Does anyone feel her use of the phrase finger chingers for chopsticks sounds vaguely racist? Me too.
In other food-related news, on Friday, Zoey was eating a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. Of course, this was only after a fifteen-minute tantrum because I told her we were out of Lunchables. Anyway, she held up a small piece of the sandwich and proclaimed, "Daddy, this looks like a saxophone!" Of course, it looked nothing like a saxophone, but I agreed and praised her nonetheless. But then I thought, should I put it on Ebay? Surely some idiot would buy it. Or maybe just cut out the middleman and proposition Golden Palace? Unfortunately, she had eaten it before I figured out a way to make some quick cash from her overactive imagination.
Al Roker And The Girls Of Hi-5
I Tivo'd Today two weeks ago because Laurie Berkner was scheduled to perform two songs. Zoey is a big Laurie fan and Zed always turns to the television when he hears one of her videos. And, believe it or not, her music's actually pretty decent, especially for children's music.Anyway, Al Roker was sitting on the couch betwixt his two female cohosts. Sorry, I've never really watched Today so I don't know their names. Actually, I don't understand why anyone watches Today. It's basically just three hours' worth of recipes, celebrities pimping their latest vehicles, boring human interest stories, inane chatter, and, for some unknown reason, weather reports every fifteen minutes. Christ, if anyone needs the weather report that badly, couldn't they just switch it to The Weather Channel?
So they broadcast a clip of the next day's Today's musical guest, Hi-5, which, oddly enough, I can also stomach. Here is a transcript of Al Roker watching this clip:
Wow. I haven't seen them. Wow, that's freaky. Let's look at some more of that. Whoo. Wow.
They cut back to Roker and the cohosts and Roker's sitting on the edge of his seat, staring at the monitor. It was quite obvious Roker was enamored with the girls. So the kind people in the control booth began playing another clip just for Al. Here's what he had to say this time:
Oh yeah. Karaoke for the kids. Wow. Little something for the dads jumping around there, too. That's all right.
Which was met with nervous laughter from his female cohosts.
Needless to say, Al wasn't allowed any onscreen time with the girls of Hi-5 (sounds like a Playboy pictorial) the next day.
I Don't Want To Be Buried In A Pet Sematary
Zoey does not have any imaginary friends. She has plenty of real friends, and since she's so headstrong, she can make them do whatever she wants. So the need for imaginary friends that can be easily controlled hasn't arisen yet.But she doesn't have a pet.
See where I'm headed with this?
Zoey has an imaginary cat. Zoey has an imaginary dog. Zoey has an imaginary turtle, fish, rabbit, elephant—you name the animal, she has one for a pet. Apparently, Zoey has an imaginary zoo.
And every imaginary animal is named Freako. I have no earthly idea how she came up with that name. I don't think I really want to know.
But here's the really twisted part: none of the animals live in our house. They all live in Heaven. So not only does my poor child have so many imaginary animals that she had to give them all the same name, but they keep dying on her as well. Imagine all the imaginary guilt she must have stored up inside of her.
I do not know what caused all the imaginary carnage. Perhaps they were all imaginarily run over by imaginary cars. Or perhaps one of her imaginary animals became imaginarily infected with some imaginary disease and imaginarily transmitted it to the rest of the imaginary zoo.
Regardless, I know I won't be getting her a real pet anytime soon. Not until she can at least take better care of her imaginary ones.
