The Decline and Fall of The English Language...MInistry of Silly Walks...

      It is difficult at the best of times, to maintain any amount of cleanliness in a child's room. Clean it one minute and the next it looks as though a bomb has dropped inside of it. I was shocked to say the least when I walked by her room and saw Izzy hard at work.
     Daddy: "What's up, Pick?"
     Isobel: "Just cleaning my room."
     Daddy: "Oh, OK."
     Isobel: "What?"
     Daddy: "Nothing, go right on ahead."
     Isobel: "What?"
     Daddy: "Nothing Isobel."
     Isobel: "Daddy, what are you looking at?"
     Daddy: "I was just wondering why the sudden urge to clean your room?"
     Isobel: (she thought about this answer for a bit) "I just want my room and my things to be decent from now on."


      I'm not one to criticize our educational system. It has served me well lo these many years and I figured it was doing the same for my children. So I have to say it came as no surprise to me when Isobel came home with her writing assignment.
      "Look Daddy," she said. "A+!"
      "Well of course it is. You are my kid!" I crowed.  "I was a whiz at writing and spelling and all that sort of stuff."
     She put the slip of paper in my hand I noticed right away the bright green ribbon in the top right corner. A large A+ adorned the ribbon as if to proclaim its total awesomeness to the whole world.
      "Let's have a look," I said eagerly. "I know it's going to be great, it's an A+ right?"
    "It sure is!" she said proudly.
     I grabbed a hold of the slip of paper and took in the words written across it. OK, she's six so I gave the penmanship a break but the rest...well, I'm certain my jaw hit the floor. Shocked and stunned. I was shocked and stunned and not a little amazed...
      It has been a very long time since I was in school but I was certain what passed for an A+ assignment couldn't have changed too much.Wrong. I was shocked and stunned. The following is the A+ paper.

1) Snoflack-I can only assume that this is a SNOWFLAKE and not something that rockets out of your nose during cold and flu season.
2) Badry- Isobel told me this word is BATTERY. I told her it was not.
3) Cat- Even a broken clock is right twice a day, right?
4) Hard rirr-I think this is something she hit one of the kids in her class with.
5) Prss-not what you're thinking...ok it WAS what I was thinking but it isn't that either.
6) Lago-gril-apparently not a cooking surface.
7) not doq-the opposite of doq (duh)
8) Sticr- I guessed STICKER I guessed right. (or Isobel just said that to get one right)
9) Dora-Two outta three aint bad?
10) Fisn-Sometimes eaten by #3?
11) Bolll-round and bouncy and I think Peter Sellers said it a lot in 'The Party'
12) Crayon- But she can spell CRAYON?
13) Boldrfiy-Isobel told me this was BUTTERFLY again, I told her it was not.
14) Buvl Snoflack-umm...WTF?
15) Dall4in-See # 14
16) Robot-YAY!
17) Hrt-I guessed HURT. Isobel told me it was HEART. I told Isobel that she needed to go to her room to think about what she had done.
      The biggest shock of all? In the corner of the paper, under the A+ STICR was handwritten by Isobe'ls teacher 'Wow Isobel you are terrific at writing!' complete with a hand drawn smiley face. Was she high? Had she just had too many years smelling finger paint and munching white paste during recess and now her brain had gone soft? I've met the woman and she seemed to have her faculties about her but you know, even J.Edgar Hoover hid his dinner frocks from the rest of the world until long after he was dead.
    I love my kids and I am proud of all their accomplishments. An A+ is a big one, even if it's for making new words...hell the old ones are getting kind of stale anyway. And with what she lacks in spelling, she more than makes up for in creativity...somebody is going to have to write this thing when I am gone...


       We're a pretty odd lot around here, all of us and so it takes something REALLY out there to get anybody else's attention. One day Isobel came down the stairs in just such a way. Picture John Wayne in a classic cowboy lope if he had Elephantitus of the testicles and that is how she walked down the stairs and continued to walk around the house.
      "Daddy?" she asked.
       "Yes, Pickle?" I asked.
      "Daddy, I bet you're wondering why I'm walking like this?"
       "Not really." I said.
     It was a lie. I was interested. This was beyond simple play acting and she had never seen a cowboy movie in her life but I held my curiosity. She would be telling me shortly whether I wanted to hear it or not.
   She loped around the living room and loped around the kitchen and I swore I heard the 'jingle-jangle' of spurs (and muttering about sore balls) until she could stand it no more.
      "Daddy!" she sighed at me. "Aren't you going to ask me why I am walking like this?"
      "OK Pick, I'll bite. Why are you walking like that?"
       "I am walking like this because I am still sticky."

     Of course she was and why not?