Nick asked me a simple question this morning. We were pulling out of the parking lot at the Jewish Community Center where we swim and work out. There are several flagpoles out front. I never pay any attention to them.

“What are flags for?”

It was a stumper. I thought a bit as I looked up at the flags flapping in the wind.

“They’re symbols,” I answered.

“What’s a symbol?”

Down the rabbit hole I went, starting with the usual “uuuuh…” Flags used to be rallying points in battles and of course they let us identify American stuff and people… But really I think they’re mostly propaganda tools, something fancy and bright for folks in a collective to look up to, fluttering in the sky or clinging to a wall, a fetish to hang their collective prejudices upon, a rallying point for nationalism or gangism or whatever your ‘ism is.

Reboot. I thought all that but I didn’t say it out loud, okay? So don’t get all huffy now. What I actually said was, “flags are a thing that you look at and it makes you think about some thing.”

“Thing” is a word that a five-year-old generally gets without the need for follow-up, so I try to stick to that whenever possible. I continued. “Like the flag with the stripes and stars reminds you that you’re an American and part of America. The blue Star-of-David flag is a symbol for the Jewish community, so they fly that outside the JCC because it’s a Jewish sort of thing.”

I think Nick had stopped listening at “flags are a thing.” He stared out the car window for a few seconds after I shut up. “At school, there is one on the wall, and we do this with our hand” — he stretched out his right arm in a strange salute and then placed his hand on his stomach — “and then they say a bunch of things.”

EXACTLY, Nick. You say a bunch of things. That’s the next piece of the propaganda puzzle, the chanting of random words that inculcate you into the American nationalistic mindset, the beginning of your formal brainwashing, words that come to have no real meaning for most people but are used as political weaponry by hypocrites and snake oil sellers.

No no no, of course I didn’t say that to Nick. I said the pledge of allegiance instead, while reminding myself that despite the religious fervor of our times, “under God” wasn’t added to the pledge until 1954, more than 150 years after our nation was founded. I set that aside in my mind and focused on the last words, “justice and liberty for all.” Emphasis on FOR ALL.

“What does it mean?”

Ugh… By now I was imploding with my effort to suppress all the cynical and frustrated thoughts that were bubbling up in my head. What DOES it mean? What does it mean to pledge allegiance to a FLAG? Shouldn’t we pledge allegiance to the nation — aka our community — first? Why a fetish, a flapping piece of fabric, first? How come the same people who want to keep GOD in the pledge are okay with the idolatry built right into it? Isn’t the flag a false idol? On and on I went down the hole, pondering a random assortment of hypocrisies and lies I associate with the tide of religious nationalism taking over the world, and with the incredible anti-government sentiment that drives people to run for political office. So they can work in government, on the public tap.

“Mommy?”

Apparently Nick was struck by the sudden and inappropriately long silence in the car, or maybe my face was going off kilter.

Now that he had my attention again, he went on. “We bow to things at tae kwon do.”

We do indeed bow to the tae kwon do and American flags hanging on the wall before and after each class. Nick’s comment had the feel of a question.

“Yeah. It’s all just to show respect.”

I guess we could have talked about flags as an expression of pride and identity. We could have talked about how flags can inspire people — Olympic athletes, soldiers, immigrants dreaming of a better life in a better land. I could have told Nick a story about the wee bag of ashes I got to take home from a girl scout camp in Korea after we participated in a very moving ritual of burning a tattered old American flag to lay it to rest (I still have that baggie somewhere), or about the days when I was one of the few 5th grade dorks who volunteered to take down the school’s American flag every day because I know how to fold a flag into a proper triangle without letting it touch the ground.

American propaganda runs deep in my veins. I spent my first decade running around a military base. I’m thankful to be an American citizen. I’m proud of much of what our country has done in the course of its short history.  But I just don’t have it in me these days to rally my kids to the propaganda. I’m disgusted by our polarized society, I’m turned off completely by our leadership in Congress, I’m enraged by the Supreme Court’s anti-citizen decision in Citizens United. Bleah.

It must be election season.

I haven’t dropped a post in a while. I’ve been in a funk. Things are heading sour for Jesse at school and I’m depressed about having to push my head through her teacher’s disfunction in dealing with her. I’m emotionally raw about it and unprepared for the quasi-adversarial battle that seems to be required to get a well-seasoned elementary school teacher to sing a different tune. Plus the school nurse called about updating Jesse’s health plan to include stuff about anxiety, because the teacher had called her instead of me to ask about strategies. This set me off, since I thought I had a good informal working relationship with the teacher so it surprised me that she back-channeled me. Then the nurse called back advocating for NOT including anxiety and dealing directly with the teacher (which is what I was doing in the first place), but only after I already met with Jesse’s therapist about it, incurring cost and wasting a session that Jesse desperately could have used with him.

I hate that school staff think they know my daughter better than me. Nonsense. It’s incredibly dismissive and disrespectful. They should listen to me more and lecture me less. It just gets me all worked up. I’m strung out by Jesse’s strung out behavior about school. I feel unappreciated. I accomplish nothing to be proud of. I screamed at the kids and Anthony yesterday morning and then I went to the basement and sulked for a good hour. I peed my pants (just a little) when I demo’ed a flying front snap kick into the leaf pile in the afternoon. My life sucks. (Except for all the parts of it that don’t, but please don’t interrupt because I’m busy feeling sorry for myself here, okay?)

Still, I think what grinds me down most some days is the relentless string of bizarre comments and questions that issue from Nick’s mouth. It’s so irritating and yet too cute to get mad about, which creates a strange dissonance in my mind. Some days, it’s crushing. The following were lifted verbatim from just one morning – merely a sampler of the constant tittle tattle:

Mommy, what if all the people were gone? Then what if you were born and there was nobody to teach you? How would you learn reading? Or manners… What if there was no tae kwon do?

What if you fell in love with an apple. Can people fall in love with apples? That is silly.

What if Madeline had only wings? No, what if she was ONLY wings? That would be weird.

What if after 1000 days? Would it be winter? [sweetie, it’ll feel like winter in about 45 to 60 days.] Then we will have a new number like four or three?

How much HALLOWEEN will I have at my school? [not sure what you mean, buddy.] How many halloweens will pass? [5 before you’re done with elementary school.] FIVE?? Today??

Madeline is gonna fall in love with her foot. Then she will have baby feet.

Remember when a sister and a sister fell in love with a sister and a sister?

Are you married to poop?

You are never alone mommy. There is always the spirits.

* * * *

Gaining deep insights, one nonsensical moment at a time.

My kids go to the FUN KIDS DENTIST. That’s what they’re called. They have a palm tree on their sign and fish in the waiting room. They deal really well with Jesse’s anxiety and Nick’s crazy. They have a dentist who’s also an orthodontist, which is really awesome because one-stop-shop.

They also embody everything that stinks about medical billing. The first time I went there with Jesse last year, the receptionist who checked me out told me that they had contacted my insurer already and there would be no coverage for her cleaning because we were having it done 2 weeks earlier than insurance allowed. It was a couple hundred bucks, which wouldn’t break my budget that month, so I shrugged and paid it.  But to put it in perspective, that’s enough money to feed my family for a week.

A few weeks later I got a notice from our dental insurer. It had paid the bill two weeks earlier. That was news to me. I called The Fun People. Among other things, I said, did your office staff lie to me about checking with our insurer?

I admit that I was adversarial and combative. But I was irritated. I don’t like being dicked with. The nice lady on the phone said so-sorry and quickly (as in, didn’t skip a nano-second beat) told me that no-no-no-insurer-said-no-coverage.

Ri-i-i-ight. Because she would remember that off the top of her head. She assured me I would get a refund.

A few weeks later I thought about it. No refund yet. I called them back. So-sorry-so-sorry, our accountant was on vacation back when you called and we surely left her a message, but she must have forgotten. I asked if I needed to inform the insurer that they had double-billed me and lied to me about the lack of coverage. I received a refund check in the mail two days later.

* * *

Jesse had some orthodontic work done over the summer. As with all things Jesse, there’s nothing terribly wrong, but her teeth just aren’t exactly plumb-square-level and her baby teeth seem to be rotting out. We’re on it. I got a call from a Fun Lady some time in August. “I’m calling to remind you that you have a bill due in the amount of $—.” It was somewhere in the couple-hundred dollar range. I was surprised to be getting a dunning call. I like my excellent credit rating, and I act accordingly. I felt a little bad, but it was summer and our life gets a little out of control.

“Have you sent me a bill?” I asked. “I don’t remember getting one.”

“Yes,” she answered briskly, still talking in a tone that informed me I was a hose-bag deadbeat.

“When did you send it?”

There was a brief pause and then a confident, cheerful response. “We did mail it to you… It should be arriving in your mail today. Would you like to pay with a credit card today?”

WTF.

Four years of behavior modification therapy with Jesse kicked in, like magic. In a past life, I would have had a very significant, very long hissy fit all over The Fun Billing Lady. I would have done everything in my power to ruin her day, or even better her week, at extremely high volume. But in this story, I was calm, on the outside at least. I took several deep breaths. I spoke slowly, using every last bit of self-control to not rage out at this voice on the phone. “When I actually receive a bill, I will review it and decide if it’s accurate, and also if I determine that you’re not double-billing me, I’ll pay it. But no, I won’t pay you with a credit card before I actually see an actual bill.”

There was another brief pause, followed by a chirpy “thank you” and a figurative la la la as The Fun Lady ended the call.

* * *

Today I received a bill for a cleaning last month. Look at what they’ve done.

The bill shows $148 in charges for services. The last line on the itemized list says “Claim to [DT15] for 148.00.” I don’t actually know what “DT15″ is, but I can guess that it’s my insurer. Then look at the bottom. It shows my ‘PLEASE PAY” balance due as $148. Notably absent is a number in the row called “INSURANCE OUTSTANDING.” It should say “148.00.” As in, I don’t owe the dentist a penny.

That’s not a small omission. In my opinion, its only purpose is to obtain a double payment, from both me and the insurer. And then, as happened before, they’ll forget to refund me.

I hate this sort of shit. It takes me right past grumpy to irate. Good thing therapy is still working for me. I took a few deep breaths and shook my head, and then I threw the bill away.

The kids and I have been doing tae kwon do for more than a month now. Tomorrow we’re all taking the gold belt test; if we pass, we won’t be white-belted tae kwon do virgins anymore. We’ll be GOLD BELTS, and then we just have to get through about 9 more belts and maybe 4 to 5 years of effort to be black belts. I’m in. It’s been a strange delight so far. The workouts are good, the instructors are terrific, my kids seem to really enjoy it. There’s a heavy focus in the kid classes on self-respect and self-control, which I really like.

The only major down side so far is the Korean-speaking that goes on. I’m not sure I can survive 5 years of it. They count in Korean, over and over again. They use Korean commands and directions. All the instructors appear to have been taught the words by the same person, and all the students have been taught in turn. They all sound the same.

Whoever the source is, he or she has the worst Korean ever. If I counted to 10 in English with the same level of disfunction, my numbers would sound like this: wan, toot, threat, fur, five, sex, sef-heh, oat, neen, teen. Jesse was very anxious about learning the numbers so she could comply with orders to count. I begged her and Nick not to count with the class for a while. “Learn the numbers from me, not the studio,” I ordered. “They don’t know how to say them right.”

I started to wonder if the instructors weren’t speaking Korean at all. The teacher kept saying “chariot” over and over, and also “COON-yay!” What could these words mean?

I called my mom. “Mom, what does “coon-yay” mean?”

“What?”

“COON-YAY.”

“Whaaat? I don’t know.” I couldn’t blame her stroke for her confused reaction this time.

“The teacher keeps saying it right before everyone bows.”

“Oh. Kyong-nyeh. That’s how we say bow.”

Huh. Right. Not even close.

I tried “chariot” on mom, but we couldn’t figure that one out together. Eventually I noodled in my head and remembered something my uncles used to yell at us in Korea when we were screwing up. “Jong-sheen cha-ryo!” I understood it to mean something along the lines of “get your head out of your a^%!” Or maybe, “Get your act together.” In tae kwon do, “Chariot” seemed to mean something like “pay attention.” Aha. “Cha-ryot.” Mmm. Almost.

I also noticed class leaders and instructors kept saying Dora. It couldn’t be. What did she have to do with martial arts? More thinking. Korean for “turn” is something like “To-rha.” I guess that’s what they mean.

It’s all so confusing. I grew up with my Korean family speaking English with a strong accent and bearing up to the mockery. But I’ve never been in a position to look down on white people speaking Korean with a bad accent. Really bad. It’s just awful to hear.

It didn’t take me long to see the up side of the situation. I started to passive-aggressively assert my better accent at every opportunity, working hard to embrace an unfamiliar feeling of ethnic and cultural superiority.

I would stand in the back of the class and yell the numbers loud enough that I didn’t have to hear anyone else’s pidgin Korean. I swear, for a couple weeks people would look back at me like I was an idiot. After all, I was the ONLY PERSON in the room saying the numbers the way I did. Moron white belt, I imagined them thinking. I should keep my mouth quiet until I learn to say Korean numbers real good, like everyone else.

Or maybe I was just annoyingly loud. Whatever.

When we entered the studio and bowed to the instructors, I would greet them in formal Korean. “An-yong-ha-shum-nee-ka, sah-bum-nim.” Startled eyes. I would say good bye and thank you in proper formal Korean. I would make my kids do it too.

Students and instructors eventually figured out I’m Korean, at least by half. And, despite my shitty, unkind attitude about their crappy accents, they were really warm and nice about my ethnicity. Respectful even, and sheepish. Then I felt bad. It’s not like I speak perfect Korean anymore; my tongue is lazy with lack of use, and I have the fluent vocabulary of a toddler. These students are doing their best in an alien setting with an alien language and an alien cultural model. I was acting just like all the people over the years who made fun of my family’s accents, who put them down and tried to make them feel small for talking and looking funny, who pissed me off a million ways with their stupid American superiority.

What a jerk. Me, that is.

Last week a green belt led the class in stretches and warm ups. He announced, “We’ll finish up with 40 jumping jacks.”

Then he looked over at another green belt. “Oh, maybe not. I can’t count to forty.”

The other man replied, “How about two sets of 20?” They hesitated in mild confusion, with no instructor around to help them decide what to do.

I yelled from the back of the class. “I can count to 40 for you, sir!” (I know. Weird. That’s how we talk to each other in tae kwon do.)

He didn’t look anything but relieved. “You can count to 40?? Thank you ma’am! Please lead us!”

I barked the count through 40 jumping jacks. Everyone was happy. And just because I counted to 40 in one of my native languages — the language of my birthplace, the first language I spoke as an infant, the language I’ve almost forgotten for lack of use — 20 near-strangers bowed to me and applauded.

I noticed Jesse looking over at me from the kid side of the classroom with her mouth hanging open. Yeah, that’s right baby girl. Mama’s got game. I can count to 40. BAM.

It is a beautiful autumn day in my part of Wisconsin! The sun is out, the leaves are turning to the loveliest colors, the air is crisp and cool. Aaaaah.

Nick and I headed over to school early today so we could spend a good half hour on the nature walk in the woods next to the school before he headed inside to prison. I mean, school. We were 2 minutes and 30 yards in playing hide-and-seek when he suddenly ran back to me and spoke with urgency. “MOMMY! I have to poop! NOW!!”

Why is so much of my life about poop?

“Is it an emergency?” I asked.

“Yes!” answered Nick as his feet started the telltale pitter-patter of an I-gotta-poop happy dance.

“Can you wait five minutes while we get back to the car and drive home?”

“NO.”

So he dropped trou’ in the woods. This is not an issue for us, being Masters of the wilderness poop. He squatted, held onto my leg, and quickly unloaded his bowels. I stared at his poop in shock, as I always do. How does a 3-foot-tall, 41-pound squirt issue man-turds?

It looked like a clean one, so I felt cheerful because I had nothing to clean him with. Until we started to pull up his pants. That’s when I realized he had also peed while pooping, shooting every drop into the waist hole of his pants and underwear, which were around his ankles as he squatted. I had forgotten about the whole tiny-penis-pointing-straight-up thing.

So, instead of enjoying a half hour in the woods, we climbed back in the car and raced home for a quick bath and clothing change, We barely made it back to school on time in a numb frenzy, without collecting a single autumn leaf or chasing a single squirrel or wood fairy.

And that about sums up my life these days, whether it’s the figurative or the actual walk in the woods you’re talking about.

I am just not a bright bulb these days. About a month ago I was bombarded by the IQs of my Facebook friends, based on quickie quizzes posted up by some unidentified sources. Everyone reported being in the 120 to 130 range, which struck me as curiously uniform.

Just for kicks, Anthony and I took one of the tests together, because we’re a team, we’re partners in life, we’re joined permanently in the universal union of love. Yeah. That’s why. Our collective IQ is allegedly in the 130’s, so I guess that means we’re about 65 each. That sounds right.

The test was short. There were simple pattern questions (numbers and shapes) and math and word stuff and some basic logic. Not especially impressive. Not like being able to sort out socks from six full loads of laundry without having even ONE singleton sock remaining. Which I seriously managed to do a couple months ago, so I know my laundry IQ is like, 200. (Or my OCD was in full blossom. You choose.)

I took another one of the IQ tests all by myself and attempted to get every single answer wrong. I tried really hard. My IQ was still reported as 115, which tells me something. It tells me that I’M TOO STUPID TO FAIL AN IQ TEST ON PURPOSE. Hopeless.

I’m not a fan of IQ tests. In my opinion, an “intelligence” test that asks this question — “which of the following does not belong?” — without providing criteria for belonging is, in the immortal words of Anthony, “a stupid test.” The answer depends on your perspective and culture and whether you can determine what category the test writer has in mind. There are almost always legitimate alternatives. It’s a test of something, just not innate intelligence. I feel this is even more true for patterning questions. What comes next in a pattern depends on how long the repeating pattern is, and there are lots of ways to shake that out when you only have a few observations to work with. So really the IQ being tested isn’t some innate smarty-pants thing, but a person’s ability to anticipate what the testing body was expecting the testee to observe. What do you call that, test-taking social cue IQ?

This is all redundant prattle, of course. Debates about IQ tests and standardized tests are the stuff of legend. LEGEND, I tell you.

I used to be really good at standardized tests, because I’m simple. I actually think they’re kind of fun, which says something very lame about me. I used to teach for the Princeton Review. My niche was teaching the reading and comprehension sections of the LSAT to the “rocks” — standardized testing bottom-dwellers. Working with this cohort was eye-opening. Most of the people were really interesting and sometimes outright strange. Usually they had more questioning minds than the average high-scoring joe or joan. Their perception of the meanings of words and phrases was frequently off norm, and yet perfectly sensible – even poetic sometimes – once they could explain it to me. On several occasions I was unable to formulate a legitimate, intellectually sound answer when challenged as to why one multi-choice answer was better than another. In such situations, I was apt to tell the student this. It doesn’t matter that you are making sense. You suck at standardized tests and you still will get the answer wrong. You need to think like the boob who wrote the test, and like the boobs who do well on the test, and like the boob standing in front of you right now trying to help you do better on the test.

When I was 10, we moved from Seoul, Korea — a vibrant, polluted third-world metropolis in 1976 — to Stockton-Someplace-Special, the armpit of California. After a short while in the local public school’s fifth grade, I was placed in a room with a strange man who presented me with a bunch of crazy-ass problems to solve. I had fixed in my mind that a 200 IQ was required to be a “genius.” I have no idea where that came from. When my mom told me I had been given an IQ test and mine was somewhere in the 150’s, I concluded with a mix of sadness and relief that I was a pretty ordinary schmo. I still believe that. There were a lot of reasons why I would test well when I was 10. I was bilingual and I could read in Korean, so that naturally made language stuff easier. I studied classical piano from when I was 4, so that gave me some discipline and less anxiety in a performance/testing setting. My dad was a reader, so I read a lot. My dad loved crossword puzzles, logic problems, spatial brain teasers and such, so I grew up doing all of that from an early age. I had a really good memory, so that made all the academic basics easier. Maybe the DOD schools were better in Korea. Who knows. None of this meant I was innately smarter than anyone else, but it surely would have made it easier for me to work my way through an IQ test with some school psychologist.

If I took a real IQ test now, I believe I would present with a double-digit number, hopefully a high one. And I would be proud. My once phenomenal memory has been shot to pieces by aging, parenthood, and sleep deprivation, and I’m just not very good at logical problem solving anymore. What does spending nearly a decade almost exclusively in the company of small children do to a brain? I get depressed when I think about it too much. I can practically see and hear my brain pathways withering away and dumbing down, my memories of mathematical concepts and musical forms and complex legal principles methodically replaced by monosyllabic rhyming words and threatening 5-counts, my ability to process and organize large amounts of data transformed into a spectacular talent for finding where Nick last hid his green dragon with the orange horns and see-through wings, my axons sheering away left and right like chunks of ice crumbling off the arctic sheet.

How long was that sentence?? See what I mean?? I make no sense anymore.

I can’t make it through a single day in a sensible fashion. I experience life as a chaotic, quantum affair, ping-ponging from need to need as my children bully me through each day. My bulb is dimming. The only way for me to get to three digits on a real IQ test would be if they give me long enough and I manage to pull a trick, like the hypothetical monkey who types randomly on a keyboard for ten years and eventually produces a Shakespearean sonnet.

Anyway, why did people post up their fake IQs on Facebook? Who cares? I’m so much more interested in specific skills, like if people said things like… I’m so good at spatial problem solving than I managed to make 7.5 inch floor tiles fit a 12-foot square room without a single cut by manipulating the grout width perfectly. I’m so good with plants that I wintered over calla lilies in Fairbanks. I hear voices and music in my head, here watch this Youtube video where I recorded some of them. I ran a seven-minute mile, check it out on map-my-run so you know I ain’t lyin’. My farts can clear an entire conference room; anyone know a good consultant who can help me update my resume?

If my Facebook friends posted up things like that, I would think they were all geniuses and it would be a really fascinating day on Facebook.

All this nonsense on the 5-minute drive to the bagel shop for lunch:

Mommy, can I have candy?

No.

When can I have candy?

I don’t know. Not today.

You know I have two favorite candies. Guess what my favorites are.

I don’t know.

My very favorite is the little ones. Do you know the ones I mean? They are little.

No idea, Nick.

it is like little balls, but there is no chocolate in them.

Oh you mean skittles? (I’m dismayed I know what he means.)

Yeah! Skittles! Mommy, can I have skittles?

No.

When can I have skittles?

I don’t know. Not today.

But when can I?

I don’t know. we don’t have any.

Then when can we get them?

I don’t know. I would have to buy some.

Then can we stop for them now?

No.

Do you know where to buy them?

No. I mean, yes. but I don’t want to. The bags are too big and then you’ll eat too many.

Can I maybe just have a little bowl of them, like I could have maybe three or four, or maybe 8 or 12?

I don’t want to talk about skittles anymore.

Okay. (15 second pause.) Mommy. Tell me one of the things I’m thinking about on the school bus.

What?

Tell me one of the things I’m thinking about, on my chair on the school bus.

Nick, how can I —

Tell me.

That’s so random, Nick.

JUST GUESS. You just have to think a little bit and tell me what you think I’m thinking about.

Uh… Poop?

No! Poop isn’t in the bus.

Tree?

No! Trees don’t grow on buses! It’s something that keeps you safe.

Oh, seatbelts.

Yeah! There’s no seatbelts on buses. What’s different about buses and cars?

Other than seatbelts? I don’t know, I guess the bus is big and the car is little.

Yeah! The bus is big and long but the cars are not big and long. But the cars are kind of big.

(Nick stares out the window contemplatively and makes weird machine-gun noises with his tongue for a few seconds.)

Mommy. What if there were boogers all over you. How would you feel?

I would feel boogery and slimy.

Why?

Because I would be covered in boogers. Duh.

Do your boogers have slime on them?

I don’t know. i mean, they’re mucus, so…

What does mucus mean?

Um, i guess it means boogers. Hey, what if YOU were covered in boogers?

I would reflect them back on you! (guffawing at his own awesomeness for this wit.)

Gross.

What if you were in a dinosaur’s nose?

What?

What if your whole entire body was in a dinosaur’s nose?

Then I would be covered with dinosaur boogers.

How would you feel?

I would feel disgusting.

Yeah, you would be TOTALLY disgusting. (hysterical laughter from back seat.)

Oh look we’re here. Get out of the car. (Mom shakes head to unload newly deceased brain cells.)

Just for kicks, I googled “What does it mean to be grumpy.” I was wondering how the world around me perceives grumpy people. I was surprised by what google unloaded.

The urban dictionary says “grumpy” is slang for “the act of defocating” (misspelling in the original). As in, “I just took a grumpy in the can.”

For real? Who knew? I’m familiar with many, many euphemisms for poop and pooping — I consider myself a veritable expert — but this is new.

Aargh. Autocorrect. If I type “poop,” autocorrect actually offers me “poopfest” and “poopage” as alternative words. But if I type “poopING,” suddenly autocorrect is all coy and must change it to “popping” or “pooling.” Apparently Ms. Autocorrect has a problem with in-progress bowel movements. What a prude.

The on-line slang dictionary takes it to the next level of transformative hip. You can “bust a grumpy.” Pooping re-purposed as a form of dance? Mm.

I dunno. I think most of us feel less grumpy after releasing the hounds. Maybe I’m wrong.

This Google search took me in such an unexpected direction. Then I scrolled down and discovered google’s offerings for “related searches.”

I’ll never understand the Internet. (Shakes head and grumbles as she walks up the stairs to go bust a grumpy.)

Maximum grumpy edition today. Five interminable minutes into trying to help Jesse figure out some multiplication tricks before she heads to school, while Nick intercedes with random animal noises and disruptive behaviors, my mood sinks swiftly from irritable to irate:

Nick, cut it out.

BAYA BAYA BAYA NANANANA

Nick. Stop it. Now.

(Laughing while he pokes my boobs and ass)

IT’S NOT FUNNY.

Nyeh nyeh nyeh banana

NICHOLAS, CUT IT OUT NOW.

(giggling while he burrows his head under my butt on the sofa)

NICHOLAS, THIS IS NOT FUNNY. YOU WILL SPEND THE ENTIRE [silent f***ing] DAY WITH ME, BECAUSE I’M GOING ON THE [silent god-awful] FIELD TRIP WITH YOUR CLASS. JESSE WON’T SEE ME ALL DAY. I NEVER GET TO PLAY WITH HER BECAUSE OF YOU [silent you jackass]. I AM ALLOWED TO GIVE JESSE ATTENTION [silent even though she’s a jackass too]. YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY PERSON WHO MATTERS. SHE MATTERS TOO. [silent why am I talking so loud this morning?]

(tears and snarfly voice from the little guy)

I will just, just… I will just go upstairs now, mommy.

NO [silent oh em gee you’re such a little cutie]. YOU COME HERE RIGHT NOW. GIVE ME A HUG. I CAN BE ANGRY AT YOU AND STILL LOVE YOU. I CAN GIVE JESSE ATTENTION AND STILL LOVE YOU.

Okay, okay. I will just go upstairs now.

(wonderful peaceful silence for 3 minutes until, from the stairs…)

Mommy? I have to poop.

Okay, then go poop. [silent why now??] Do it fast because we have to take Jesse to school in three minutes.

What does three minutes mean?

Go sit on the can. NOW.

(grunting noises)

Okay I’m done now, mommy.

(butt wiping)

That poop hurt, mommy.

I’m sorry buddy. Wash your hands and pull up your pants.

(dawdling)

NOW. WASH YOUR HANDS NOW. WE HAVE TO TAKE JESSE TO SCHOOL.

(washes. doesn’t dry)

DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT WIPING YOUR WET HANDS ON ME OR JESSE. NO ONE THINKS THAT’S FUNNY. USE THE TOWEL. NOW. YOU ARE FIVE YEARS OLD. YOU NEED TO CHANGE THESE IRRITATING HABITS. I AM SICK OF TELLING YOU THE SAME THINGS OVER AND OVER.

(Jesse wanders upstairs for a peaceful word)

Mom. Can you stop being so mean to Nick? Stop being so angry.

????

[silent omg that’s so sweet she’s sticking up for him!] ARE YOU KIDDING ME? ALL YOU GUYS DO IS FIGHT. YOU’RE ALWAYS YELLING AT NICK FOR THIS SAME STUFF THAT’S BOTHERING ME TODAY. MAYBE IF YOU GUYS DIDN’T FIGHT AND YELL AT EACH OTHER ALL THE TIME WHEN YOU’RE TOGETHER [silent I’m exaggerating, aren’t I] I WOULDN’T BE SO FRUSTRATED THIS MORNING. GET YOUR SHOES AND SWEATERS ON. IT’S TIME TO GO. NOW.

(Nick decides this is the time to suddenly want to do his own sweater zipper)

I WILL DO IT FOR YOU [silent even though I should let you do it, but I will shrivel into an emotional prune if I have to wait patiently for this today]. YOU ALWAYS MAKE ME DO IT. THAT’S WHY YOU DON’T KNOW HOW. THIS IS NOT THE TIME.

(Jesse intercedes again.)

It’s because you’re such a nice helpful mommy and you help us with these things.

[silent well aren’t you just the smug little la-dee-da-dee]

(quick exit to car for drive to school, because I bribe my minions with “fruit” roll-ups. Total junk, full of processed sugar and carcinogenic dyes. They should be called what they are. We call kale “kale” and apples “apples.” We should call rolled up dyed sugar strips “dyed sugar roll-ups.” Anyway, it’s a perfect way to start the day in America. As we’re walking Jesse to the school doors, a friend of hers appears and they walk in together. Nick takes the opportunity to shove his fingers in the friend’s face. She tolerates it, as she has a million times before. Nick and I say good bye and walk back to the car.)

Nick, I have told you a thousand hundred million times to NOT DO THAT TO PEOPLE. IT IS NOT OKAY. NO ONE LIKES IT. NO. ONE. EVER. IF YOU NEED TO STICK YOUR [silent sticky f***ing] FINGERS IN SOMEONE’S FACE, STICK THEM IN YOUR OWN FACE [silent you little sh**]. NO ONE ELSE’S. EVER. [silent gosh I’m feeling awfully emphatic today]

(sniveling)

Okay mommy, okay okay.

(standing next to the car now)

I DON’T WANT TO DEAL WITH ALL YOUR [silent f***ing] BAD HABITS ON THE SCHOOL FIELD TRIP TODAY. I WILL BE SO ANGRY IF YOU SPEND ALL THAT TIME ON THE SCHOOL BUS AND ON THE FIELD TRIP TRYING TO STICK YOUR [silent f***ing] HANDS UP MY SHIRT AND TOUCH MY BUTT AND ALL THAT ANNOYING STUFF. I WILL BE SO [silent f***ing] ANGRY. [silent Carla, get a grip on yourself]

Okay mommy. Okay. [tiny voice] When we get home I will just go finish a time out.

(pulling into the driveway after totally silent drive home, which is very nice indeed)

Mommy, I will just leave you alone until you aren’t so angry with me, okay?

Wise little boy.

* * * *

I’m keeping it classy and batshit crazy in Wisconsin. I hope you are too, wherever you are.

Little Troublemaker