Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson for April 04, 2016

Can we let you be quiet for the rest of the duration of the grocery shopping trip, Alice?

My daughter started talking at about 18 months. By the time she was two it was constant (just like Alice). We were grocery shopping one day and she was going strong, my ears were buzzing. So I grabbed her little shoulders and leaned toward her and said “Will you please be quiet?!” She replied “Hack hack! You’re choking me!” I was so surprised I released her shoulders and stepped back! Then I stepped forward grabbed her shoulders and said “If you don’t be quiet, I WILL choke you!” She was quiet for about 3 minutes. sigh

My mum said when I was four I was going on and on and on – complaining, probably – while we were waiting for a bus. It was cold and windy, right before Christmas, and she was three months pregnant with my sister, so not feeling her best. She finally shook me and said, “Will you PLEASE shut up!” I started crying and yelled, “Don’t beat me! Don’t beat me! I’ll be good!”

At that point she was willing to push me under the next bus that came along, but instead she took me back inside the department store until everybody who had been at that bus stop was gone. The really funny thing was that other than an occasional, and well deserved, britches-dusting she never did use physical punishment on me. I have No idea where that came from.

She makes her trip to the grocery store seem a lot more exciting than mine ever are.

Boy, when has anyone seen a veiled hat lately? Guess that some might have been worn for Easter.

My mother tells me I threw a tantrum in a store once.ONCE.

“It keeps her imagination from getting away from her.”

Was Alice sipping Peter’s morning coffee while he wasn’t looking? She is really amped up today!

This made me laugh!My mother said I was vaccinated with a phonograph needle.And I remember wooly mammoths.

Old lady radar wood be totally rad.