Driver's Ed

I will now transcribe a conversation that took place on Tuesday night in our car. We were headed to school for The Ocho's spring music program. On our way, we were playing a game called "When I was a little boy.....", which honestly, isn't really a game at all. It's simply Handiman relaying stories from his childhood where he was bleeding, catching himself on fire or inflicting one or both of those infirmities onto his brothers.

In Tuesday night's episode, he told the tale of being dared to crawl through a drainage ditch under a driveway. Of course, he gets stuck in the story and has to be rescued. Once the story concluded, we were at a stop sign where the driver in front of us seemed to be waiting for a written invitation. You know the type. This is what happened next:


Handiman: "What is wrong with this guy? What an idiot."

Me: "Ocho, I hope you are learning a valuable lesson. It is only acceptable to call people names when you are inside a moving car."

Ocho: "Yeah. I know. I think Daddy just called that man an (whispering) idiot. I'm pretty sure I heard him do that once before."

Me: (Laughing hysterically) ONCE?!?!? Once every 5 minutes maybe. I'll admit though, you've heard Mommy do it just as much. That still doesn't make it right"

Ocho: "Yeah. You usually do it at the road going to our house. But that's not nice."

Handiman: "No, but it's necessary."

Me: "Do you really think that's the lesson we should be teaching here?"

Handiman: "Ok. You're right. You should never call people idiots. Unless they deserve it."

Me: "Wow. I'm sure Dr. Dobson would appreciate us writing this little parenting lesson down for him. Maybe he could use it in his next book."

Hanidman: "Well, it's true. But you don't have to call them idiots. You could call them Bozo too."

Ocho: "What's Bozo?"

Handiman: "He was a clown on TV when Mommy & Daddy were little."

Ocho: "What did he do?"

Handiman: "He sang songs and played games and........he acted like an idiot."

Me: "Terrific."

Handiman: "Hey Ocho! Look right there!!!! That's the kind of drain Daddy tried to crawl through when he was a little boy! Do you see it?"

Ocho: "Uh-huh. It looks kind of small. Were you hanging out of it when you got stuck?"

Handiman: "Probably"

Me: "So Ocho, if you were walking down this street and you saw a guy hanging out of drainage ditch, you know what you would call him?"

Ocho: "............nervous silence.........Idiot?"

Me: "That's correct."