Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Parenting Adventures - Who's the Adult?



Let's just get this over with. Little Shambles is no longer little and turns 13 in a month, so she will be henceforth referred to as the Irish Dancer as that is the closest thing to a passion she currently has developing in her life. We shall never speak of this again.

So Sunday morning found us at The Original Pancake House in Montgomery where they have enormous, delicious omelets like you've never seen or experienced before unless you've been to The Original Pancake House. It was a good meal with the family and after we paid I walked out into the foyer and, in attempt to embarrass the Irish Dancer - a fine pastime of mine - stated in an impaired voice "Yeah, I like Spongebob too!"

The Irish Dancer looked at me with overtired tween disdain, huffed, and said "What does that have to do with anything. We were talking about dicks."

Of course, what she actually said, having been mid-conversation with Mrs. Shambles about softball, was "We were talking about Dick's [Sporting Goods]."

But I laughed. Hard. I laughed all the way to the car and I laughed all the way home and chuckled out loud several times for the rest of the day. She had said it with such conviction and fervor.

So last Sunday, the Irish Dancer learned that men will laugh at jokes like they are twelve years old, pretty much until we die.

2 comments:

Brenna Briggs said...

Your pathetic father story is very funny and has cheered me right up over here in Ireland! Found you because I have an 'Irish Dancer' Google Alert as I write a book series about a 13-year-old Irish Dancer-Girl Detctive (Liffey Rivers) and she is constantly trying to escape from her pathetic father's tiresome history lectures. Also--this story reminds me of my own 'D' story at approx the same age. I was walking down Notre Dame Ave. and a teenage boy rode by me on his bike and said "Hey girl, want a 'D?' I politely answered: "No thanks." He circled around and tried again, this time pointing in the direction of the 'D' which I had not noticed on his first pass. It was, to be polite, pronounced. This time he said "I didn't say 'do you want a lift,' I said do you want a 'D?'" I will NEVER forget my horror when it finally became obvious to me what was going on...being 13, I crossed the carless street and pretended it never happened. Hard to imagine but I had never heard the 'D' word and did not know what he was talking about until he presented 'Exhibit D!' Thanks for the story! You might be the next Dave Barry unless you are already are!! I miss his columns....

Ricky Shambles said...

I don't know about Dave Barry, but thank you so much for your comments. Your story is mildly disturbing, but humorous in being innocuous. Great comment!