Let me be perfectly clear…(King James Version)

 

The following is excerpted from Lamentations of the Father by Ian Frazier.  Anyone who has ever raised kids will immediately identify with the frustrations which led him to write the piece, which I found hilarious and had to share  with you. There are three books by Frazier in our local library.

Laws Pertaining to Dessert

For we judge between the plate that is unclean and the plate that is clean, saying first, if the plate is clean, then you shall have dessert. But of the unclean plate, the laws are these: If you have eaten most of your meat, and two bites of your peas, with each bite consisting of not fewer than three peas each, or in total six peas, eaten where I can see, and you have eaten enough of your potatoes to fill two forks, both forkfuls eaten where I can see, then you shall have dessert.  But if you eat a lesser number of peas,  and yet you eat the potatoes, still you shall not have dessert; and if you eat the peas yet leave the potatoes uneaten, you shall not have dessert, no, not even a small portion thereof. And if you try to deceive by moving the potatoes and peas around with a fork, that it may appear you have eaten what you have not, you will fall into iniquity. And I will know, and you shall have no dessert.

 On Screaming

 Do not scream; for it is as if you scream all the time.  If you are given a plate on which two foods you do not wish to touch each other are touching each other, your voice rises up even to the ceiling, while you point to the offense with the finger of your right hand; but I say to you, scream not, only remonstrate gently with the server, that the server may correct the fault.  Likewise if you receive a portion of fish from which every piece of herbal seasoning has not been scraped off, and the herbal seasoning is loathsome to you, and steeped in vileness, again I say, refrain from screaming. Though the vileness overwhelm you, and cause you a faint unto death, make no sound from within your throat, neither cover your face, nor press your fingers to your nose.  For even now I have made the fish as it should be; behold, I eat of it myself, yet do not die.

 Laws When at Table

 And if you are seated  in your high chair, or in a chair such as a greater person might use, keep your legs and feet below you as they were.  Neither raise up your knees, nor place your feet on the table, for that is and abomination to me.  Yes, even when you have an interesting bandage to  show, your feet upon the table are an abomination, and worthy of rebuke.  Drink your milk as it is given you, neither use it on any utensil, nor fork, nor knife, nor spoon, for that is not what they are for; if you will dip your blocks in the milk and lick it off, you will be sent away.  When you have drunk, let the empty cup remain upon the table, and do not bite it upon its edge and by your teeth hold it to your face in order to make noises in it sounding like a duck; for you will be sent away.

 Complaints and Lamentations

 O my children, you are disobedient.  For when I tell you what you must do, you argue and dispute hotly even to the littlest detail; and when I do not accede, you cry out, and hit and kick. Yes, and even sometimes do you spit, and shout “stupid-head” and other blasphemies, and hit and kick the wall and the molding thereof when you are sent to the corner.  And though the law teaches that no one shall be sent to the corner for more minutes than he has year of age, yet I would leave you there all day, so mighty am I in anger.

 Leave the cat alone, for what has the cat done, that you should so afflict it with tape?  And hum not that humming in your nose as I read, nor stand between the light and the book. Indeed, it will drive me to madness.  Nor forget what I said about the tape.

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