Sunday, October 31, 2010

the repetition, the repetition

The children have been doing that horrible child-thing lately, droning the same thing over and over and over. It's been working my last nerve whenever I'm confined in the car with them, and lately when we're in the car, I truly am confined with them. The side passenger seatbelt froze up and can't be used, and not only will it cost over $350 to get a new one, it's taking forfreakingever for the new one to allegedly come from frigging Sweden. I happen to know that Ford owns Volvo and that my mediocre car was made in the U.S., but when the seatbelt locks up permanently, the dealership can't fix it without asking for one to be handwoven at my expense by Swedish elves.

So, in the car, either the Sober Husband or I have to mash in the backseat with the hellspawn, who argue and argue because this means they have to touch each other. And they drone. It being Halloween, they made up some little ditty with about three words total, which largely consisted of them loudly singing, ""Kill Kill Kill" over and over again, without any tune.

I tried a repetition of my own. "I am going to cast a magical spell on you now. SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP."

This had no effect on the little hellions. "Momdude, those are teasing words," one said scoldingly. "You shouldn't speak to us that way."

"You shouldn't drive me out of my mind saying the same thing over and over again!"

Not everyone minds a little brain-melting repetition, though. Yesterday Lola lay idly on the floor on the upstairs landing, with my parrot, Pigwidgeon. "Step up! Step down! Step up! Step down!" Pigwidgeon obediently stepped on Lola's hand, stepped off the hand onto the floor, then back on the hand, then back on the floor. Eventually Lola herself tired of this game and put the parrot on her parrot tree, and then we all got into the car to go somewhere, and the children began again to sing their wretched "Kill Kill Kill" song, and when I said "for the love of God will you quit that, you're driving me insane", the Sober Husband defended them by joining in.

10 comments:

Emma-Louise said...

I remember that my sister and I, on very long car trips from one end of the country to the other - which we were taken on, against my mothers better judgment, EVERY year, and upon which I partly blame my parents divorce - would talk in very nasal tones which we felt best embodied insurance salesmen, and would declare that just about everything was "very, VERY, UNproFESHunnawl!" and would not stop for bribe nor threat. My poor, poor mother.

jill said...

the geico commercial, with the little piggy squealing all the way home. But at least his home is not the mom-who's-driving-him's home. He'd be bacon, were he at my house.

the Drunken Housewife said...

OMG I am so afraid Iris will read that comment and start that insurance salesman game. I can so see them doing that for the next few years.

the Drunken Housewife said...

p.s. The ins. salesman thing made me laugh, though. Kids think up the craziest things.

Alouette said...

What I'm about to give you is solid gold so pay attention.
I used it with great success on my younger sisters all the time.
Ask them if they want to play a game, then recite the rules.
It goes in a sing-song like this;
"Silence in the court.
The monkey wants to talk.
The first one to talk
is a MON-keeey"
There's also variations involving dorks, morons and losers etc.
I always used the monkey one though because its cute and I didn't want my little sisters to cry, just shut up for a bit.

Anonymous said...

Actually, Geely Holding Group in China owns Volvo now.

Emma-Louise said...

Warning - Long story ahead. I'm a rambler.

I think the best part of the insurance salesmen gig was that years later, a little twit of a girl who was the same age as my sister at the time, probably 17 or 18 I think, had some gripe with a coworker. My mother has never had any patience whatsoever with girls our age,(as in, the age we actually were at the time) and told me once it was because not a one of them had a brain cell and reminded her far too much of us about 5 years younger than whatever age they were. Not that that contributed to our narcissism about our "highly gifted" labels, no, not at all...
Well. The story as I know it goes that this little blonde waif I'll give the name Rebecca had been working as a waitress at the club my mother was managing, and had been fruitlessly pursuing her staff manager, the ever-so-gorgeous Brendan. When he did go to a movie with her largely to shut her up, and told someone at work his motivation for actually going, it got around pretty fast, which actually wasn't his doing, but that of the bartender he told.
Rebecca goes running to my mother looking like a raccoon with makeup in great rivers down her face, talking far too fast and overusing the word 'like', and mum does her best to listen and not be judgmental as she demands he get fired for this horrible life-ruining incident - but then Rebecca gulps and takes a big breath and whines "It's very VERY UNPROFESSIONAL!!!" and my mothers caring facade cracks, and she laughs right from her belly, and she had to hobble outside and laugh so loud and so hard that she actually fell over at some point, and was afraid, she told me later, that she was actually going to choke to death because she just couldn't breathe and she just couldn't stop.

I got in trouble for it.

the Drunken Housewife said...

The children started singing the "KILL KILL KILL" song in my bedroom the other night, and I had to act quickly and firmly to shut down the expansion of that hellish "song" out of the car.

That "unprofessional"story is so hilarious. I could just see your mother in that kind of painful extreme laughter.

the Drunken Housewife said...

Anon, thanks for the note about the true ownership of Volvo. That makes it all the more pathetic and unbelievable that my dealership claims the seatbelt has to come from Sweden.

We found a non-dealership mechanic who can allegedly replace the seatbelt tomorrow, without having to resort to international shipping. We shall see.

Tracy said...

My dad was a very imposing figure, so we had to sit there in silence during any kind of car trip. However, once I got my license, my brother, our friends, and I would play King of the Weenies. To date, this is still my favourite car game.

All you need for KotW is a working heater and windows that roll up. Roll up the windows, crank the heater, and the first one to complain or pass out from the heat is the King of the Weenies for the rest of the trip.