It's funny how whatever your own family's weird little quirks are, they start to seem perfectly normal to you until you hold them up to the eyes of a third party. Today's hysterical story began at our swim lesson, when Nate started saying, "No outlet! No outlet!" Of course, this seemed perfectly normal to us, but Coach Tim found it confusing, which required Jonah to explain that it's Nate's favorite street sign. Which in turn required a brief explanation of how our kids are very into street signs. To prove the point, Steve asked Jonah to name his favorite street sign. Without hesitation, Jonah rattled off, "Do Not Enter, No Dumping, and No Outlet." Coach Tim found this very cute. And also very strange.
On the way home, Steve and I were talking about how useless the "No Dumping" sign really is in 2009 in the Bay Area, because really, who on Earth is dumping here? I mentioned that I had recently seen someone toss a Pepsi can out of a car.
"Well," Nate suddenly piped up, "if you pay $1000, it's fine for littering!"
It takes a minute, but man, is that funny.
Great stories! And yes to a family's quirks showing up at lessons. At J's first soccer lesson, when he was 3, the coach explained the rules and then asked, "Any questions?" J raised his hand, and asked, "Why don't Cinderella's stepmother and stepsisters want her to go to the ball?" (his preoccupation of the moment - why is it that mean people in stories are mean) I put my hand over my face and muttered, "Soccer questions, sweetie, he meant soccer questions . . . "
Posted by: Genevieve | May 27, 2009 at 03:03 PM
Cannot stop laughing re: this one - love it! How had I not heard about this before??
Posted by: "Auntie" Lisa | June 01, 2009 at 09:32 AM