Crime and Punishment

One of the best things about having the girls back in school is that I get to offload discipline somewhat. Sure, I have to put up with their shit during civilian hours, but for a solid block of time during the day they are not on my watch; should I wish I can choose to believe that they are all "yes ma'am"s and sunshine at school instead of acting like the surly guerilla pre-teens who live here. JHP and I suspect that they may be violating the laws of both evolution and common sense because they seem impervious to all our efforts towards getting them to behave. AD talks back like she gets paid by the word, and the Red Menace feels that it is her personal responsibility to daily remove every single article of clothing from her person and dresser and throw it around her room. Nothing we've done as of yet has broken either of them of these unsavory habits. The Red M treats any whiff of criticism with the greatest of offense and most dramatic protest - she's not allowed to sleep with a knife and a bar of soap? She'll trot out the nomination footage for "Best Performance By A Homeless Three Year Old Whose Puppy Has Just Been Slaughtered Before Her Very Eyes" for you. It's always Emmy season with that one. AD, on the other hand, quietly seethes. Skulks away to her room and closes the door, no doubt planning my imminent disappearance if not death.

It's not as if I'm not really good at punishment. At the risk of sounding immodest, let me say that I am probably one of the more gifted people you'll ever meet when it comes to that sort of thing. I forget nothing; I don't carry a grudge as much as I nurture, feed and groom it until the time comes to let it unfurl its little black wings and take a giant dump on your head. I do have an exceptionally long fuse when it comes to people I didn't build so rarely do I feel called to action, but things may or may not have been known to happen in the past. On a wildly unrelated note, you should know that many farm supply stores will deliver a bale of hay almost anywhere for $50. And college magazines seem to be notoriously lax when checking the veracity of updates that alums send in; they don't even verify "your" identity before printing the news that "you've" taken the job of Assistant Fluffer on the latest Peter North film. Also, there used to be a fantastically efficient website called shitinabox.com that would generate and handle specific deliveries; sadly that was shut down for reasons that are probably obvious. In its absence, I'm told that there's nothing at all wrong with anonymously mailing someone an actual douchebag

 not this guy. But wouldn't that fuck a brother up having him show up on their doorstep

 

preferably from outside your normal postal code. These are just things I've heard.

I've not - yet - been driven to such drastic measures with my children. So far we've done the traditional non-spanking stuff - timeouts, taking away privileges, etc. We briefly did the no television thing but that really punished us more than them, so we've quietly forgotten that one. The No-No Shelf still works somewhat with AD; just today I had to confiscate her favorite pillow, a horrible hairy turquoise peace sign thing that I think dates from her days as a Vietnam conscientious objector.

 speaking of punishment...that white piece of paper on the refrigerator are - honest to God - directions that JHP wrote out when he was teaching himself the Spiderman gif dance for no reason. We all suffered mightily.

 

The RM gives the No-No Shelf the finger - if I put anything of hers up there she just climbs up and grabs it. We've also tried making AD write sentences a la Bart Simpson when she does something wrong, but I suspect she has Teutonic tendencies because she seems to actually enjoy that.

 

this is a list of lies

 

Lately I've had some success with public humiliation. I discovered quite by accident that the girls absolutely hate it when I draw attention to myself. I realized this when we went to a football game and I started dancing with the marching band at the tailgate beforehand - you would have thought I'd run down the street nude shooting b-b's out of my behind from the way they acted. Since I, obviously, have no sense of pride I have been able to turn this to my advantage. For example, we were in Publix last week and AD started mouthing off to me so I immediately burst into "Mandy" by Barry Manilow; that shut her up, but good. Then yesterday the RM tried to palm a packet of gum at the gas station while I was getting my emissions checked - that called for an operatic reinterpretation of Jane's Addiction's "Been Caught Stealing". I'm thinking of making a list of their offenses and then taking them public through song. So if you're in the grocery store and suddenly hear "noooooow HERE'S a little story I gots to TELL about three bad brothers you know so well..." in a bad soprano, please do not be alarmed - my kid just probably threw a pickle jar or spit on the grapes. I'm molding young minds, people.

 

If that doesn't work they better watch their backs. And mailbox.