Tag: history

Rosetta Stone

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(Scene opens in parlor. Carrot is reading a restaurant menu advertisement, Husband and Beta are listening)

Me: Hmm. The “Pistoleer”. Italian beef, au jus, and toasted roll. Wait. How is that different from the “Big Daddy”? Oh, the “Big Daddy” has mozzarella and provolone. That’s what makes it a “Big Daddy” apparently, the cheese.

(Carrot and Husband lock eyes over the menu)

Both: Cheesy Skillet.

Beta: What the F was that?

Me: (carelessly, eyes on menu) Beta, one day you’re going to fall in love and you’ll know it’s the real thing when the two of you end up developing your own secret language. Its why I can never leave your father. No one else speaks my language.

Husband: Or you’ll just have to spend another twenty years learning a new one. (pause) Christine Aguleria.

Me: (begins to laugh)

Husband: (nods and leaves the room)

Beta: (outraged) WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED!?

Boogey Down

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(scene opens in mini-van)

Alpha: What day is it?

Me: September 21st.

Alpha: Happy Wind, Earth, Fire day.

Me: Wut? I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Alpha: The song! Here, I’ll play it. (picks up phone, connects it to van’s stereo)

(Carrot does a quick glance at the screen and sees Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September”)

Me: OH! I remember this song. Yeah, okay. I get it now.

Alpha: (surprised) You know this song?

Me: Yeah. It was popular recently. It was on the Troll’s soundtrack.

Alpha: But that was like nine years ago.

Me: Honey, hate to break it to you, but its way older than that. I remember being a little kid in the car with my dad and singing it. Use the technology and see what year it came out.

(Alpha fiddles with his phone)

Alpha: Woah. It came out in….1978?

Me: Yes. For reference, your Uncle J was born that year. I’m six years older than this song.

Alpha: Wow. That’s really old music.

Me: (says nothing)

The Old Tongue

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(scene opens in mini van, sound of something rolling around)

Gamma: (in hypersensitive) What is that noise?!

Me: (focusing on road) Check the ash tray.

Gamma: (pause) Ash tray?

Me: (opens recessed drawer, reveals car adapter)

Gamma: Oh, its a stylus for the touch screen! (picks it up and touches end to screen)

Me: No, it’s a car charger. You plug it into the cigarette lighter and it charges your electronics.

Gamma: (longer pause) Cigarette lighter?

Me: Damnit. Okay – back when everyone and their mother used to smoke, there was this thing in the car that you would push in to turn on and it would heat up and then you could touch it to the end of your cigarette to light it. Now they use them as car outlets because it’s just an electrical contact point inside.

Gamma: (side eye) Oh. Okay. That was weird.

Me: The more I have to explain it to you, the weirder my childhood gets.

Old joke is old

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(Scene opens in dim cluttered dinning room)

Me: (typing furiously on laptop)

Beta: (bounces into the room) Mom! I have a joke for you!

Me: (internal sigh) Shoot.

Beta: You have to look at me!

Me: (sags a little, looks up) Shoot.

Beta: (smugly, holds up fingers in a V) I’m a Roman and I’m ordering five beers!

Me: (raises eyebrows, hold up fingers in shape of an L) Fifty bucks? Really?

Beta: (confused) No, see I was…wait…what?

Me: The letter “V” stands for five but the letter “L” stands for fifty.

Beta: (pouts and tries not to smile) No fair, mom.

Me: I might have heard that one before.

For Whom

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(scene opens in cleaned parlor, new grandfather clock against the wall)

Beta: Now where did this clock come from?

Me: (dusting the wood gently) My grandparent’s. You probably never noticed it because Busia had the chimes off.

(clock strikes the half hour, Westminster Chimes ringing clear)

Beta: Ohmigod! Alpha! Come here! The clock got its ring from the clock in Five Nights at Freddy’s!

Me: (irked) No, the music comes a tower clock in England….

Beta: (interrupting hastily) Right, right. But that’s where we know the chimes from.

Me: (dismissive) Learn you some.

(multiple cut-scenes follow, shots through out the day of the chimes at the quarter hours, Alpha and Beta shouting out “Freddie clock!”)

Me: (completely unhinged) I SWEAR BY ALL THE OLD GODS AND THE NEW THAT THE NEXT ONE THAT CALLS THE WESTMINSTER CHIMES A “FREDDIE CLOCK” WILL BE SACRIFICED TO ERII SO HER REIGN MAY LAST FOREVER!

State of the Nation

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(scene opens at the dinner table)

Me: (lights the first candle in the menorah and the first candle on an Advent wreath)
Beta: Why are we lighting the menorah if we’re not Jewish?
Husband: We’re not exactly Christian either.
Me: (firmly) Every culture has a celebration of lights during the dark of the year. The first week of Advent represents Hope, so tonight we focus on our Hopes for the season and the coming year. We light the menorah as a reminder that we stand with our Jewish cousins. In this country, people are still terrorized for being…
Husband: (calmly) When she says “terrorized” she means “being killed”.

(awkward pause)

Alpha: No way.
Husband: (to wife) Don’t you remember a few months ago? Eleven people shot at a synagogue?
Me: (thinks) I thought it was a shopping mall.
Husband: Starting to become hard to tell them apart, isn’t it?

(another awkward pause)

Gamma: (brightly) Let’s eat!

Empathetic

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(scene opens in cluttered kitchen, Alpha struggling with the back door)

Me: (confused, looks over his shoulder) Oh, thanks for bringing in the garbage cans. Your sister was supposed to do that.
Alpha: (stands in doorway, exhausted) I don’t think I want to do my service hours tonight for Scouts.
Me: Are you getting sick?
Alpha: No. (pause) We watched a movie about Anne Frank and it showed what happened to her after she got sent to the camps.
Me: (compassionate smothering mom hug) People are evil. Our great goal in life is to not be evil. And to stop other people’s evil.
Delta: (awkward toddler run, hands Alpha a lollipop)
Alpha: (takes lolly, rubs Delta’s head)

Meteorology Games

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(scene opens over dish washing)

Beta: Mom, explain this groundhog thing to me.
Me: On the second of February, the groundhog comes out and it’s bright and sunny, he sees his shadow, gets scared, goes back to his burrow and its six more weeks of winter. If he comes out and it’s cloudy, no shadow and he just tools around doing his groundhogy thing, then winter is over and spring has arrived.
Beta: That doesn’t make sense. It should be the opposite. If the sun is out and the weather is nice, winter is over and winter is still here if it’s cold and cloudy.
Me: (mental sigh as she tries to find the words) Groundhog Day is a…poetic conceit? The cultural game we all play and pretend to go along with. No one actually believes it, we just go along with it.
Beta: But what happens if the groundhog says it’s spring?
Me: He never does! It is always six more week of winter because it is six weeks from February 2nd to the March 21st, which is when spring starts.
Beta: Then why do we do it?
Me: (starts up lecture of the cultural forerunners, Imbolc and Candlemas, then realize that no one is listening to her) Because humans are silly.
Beta: Oh, that makes sense.

Historical perspective

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(scene opens up in cluttered dining room, Alpha watching “The Great Escape” on the laptop)
Alpha: The guys without uniforms, who are they?
Husband: The gestapo.
Alpha: Were they military men?
Husband: They were not military men. They did not have the honor of a military man. They were civilians, a secret police, that worked with the Nazi party.
Alpha: Did they do bad things?
Husband: Very bad things.
Alpha: (thoughtful pause) Hitler was an ass.

That doesn’t mean what you think it means

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(scene opens with Saturday homework extravaganza)
Alpha: (reading merit badge book!) Mom! There are aliens! This amendment gives the government the ability to make aliens US citizens!
Me: Anyone not born in this country is considered “alien”. Mexicans are aliens, Russians are aliens, the Irish are aliens.
Alpha: But we’re all human.
Me: The world is very tribal. Everyone identifies themselves by country and/or religion. That’s why we have war. People are from the “wrong” country or the “wrong” religion.
Alpha: (downcast) Humans are stupid.
Me: (with infinite gentleness) We’re not stupid. We’re incredibly shortsighted.

Teachable moments

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Just explained to Alpha that losing the Library of Alexandria was like having humanity start over at lvl 1 and re-learning/discovering all the skills/knowledges to be a boss. Not sure if I’m appalled at myself at the comparison or intensely gratified how horrified Alpha was at the loss of the Library.