Register 6 -- Again

   Previously, I have written a blog about how register 6 is infested with gremlins. I would like to revise that particular opinion at this time, because I feel that gremlins are way to mild a creature to be possessing that maniacal machine. There is something else going on here.
   Today was a perfect example of the problem. That check reader/printer was choosing customers to mess up on -- I swear it was. Customers in a good mood, the check reader would scan the check fine, and would print up all the relevant deposit information on the back. But customers in a bad mood; all hell would break loose. I'd run the check, then the problem would start. Whir-whir-whir for two minutes while some "I'm on my lunch break and in a hurry" customer glared at me like they were gonna suck my soul out through my nose if I did not get a move on. Hey, if you are in a hurry, why'd you write a check in the first place? That's what I wanna know, but I digress. The customer would be glaring, only for me to get a printer jam message and the message that the routing number was still needed, which basically means, type that biatch in by hand. Then get the deposit info to print and wait two minutes while the machine whir-whir-whirred so that the cash drawer would open.
   Okay, aggravating, and supremely suspicious that this machine was doing this only for the grumpy grumpkins coming through my line, but I can deal with this. My extremely overworked bookkeeper swears that this machine only does this with me, but I have this down anyway. I can handle this. But the machine -- it's not done with me. No-- it has some new tricks in store for me.
   I come to a point where I need to get a balance printed for a food stamp card, and the paper, after all that whirring is done, comes out blank. Are you kidding me? So I have the customer run the card again and get a receipt printout of the balance, and when all that is taken care of and I have the customer on their way, I pop that printer door open, and the receipt tape has jumped the tracks. Throughout the day, the stupid receipt tape keeps jumping the tracks, but only on food stamp balance info and a few WIC checks. The WIC checks aren't a huge deal, but people get suspicious of you when you are asking them to run their cards extra times, so I am spending time promising people that I am not charging them extra or anything funky like that. While I understand their concern, I am beginning to feel put-out that I am having to so fervently swear to these people that I am not charging them extra. Really, people?
   And it hits me. This damn register is possessed. Forget gremlins, this thing is a demon from hell, bent on the destruction of my sanity. I see you, register demon, I see you. 

Kid Talk

   Kids say the funniest things, often when they are not trying to be funny at all. I try to remember some of the funnier ones because I like to get out the memory and have a chuckle over it all over again. These  are three funny incidents that I overheard the kids saying, and thought that I would share. These conversations come from my daughter, niece, and nephew.

1. While we were dropping off stuff at a storage unit that my sister used to have, I was waiting in the car with the kids so that we didn't have to pull all the troops out just to have them get in the way of loading stuff into the unit. The girls were in the backseat and my daughter was playing with a care bear toy and my niece was playing with an Ariel toy. They were trying to convince the other of which one was the best character.
  "Ariel lives under that water and she gets to swim and play with Flounder and sing."
  "But care bears live in the clouds and they play on rainbows and have cloud cars and they go around the world and spread caring." (We have the old episodes of care bears, so if it sounds like the old school care bears, that's because that's what she got to watch.)
  "But Ariel gets to marry Eric, and you just get to marry old Grumpy Bear."
   Can't really beat that argument, can you?

2. We were eating at Burger King, sitting by the window. My nephew and daughter actually have the 'window seats' and they are avidly looking out, because there is a huge flock of crows outside. All of the sudden, all the crows take off at once and my nephew says at almost a whisper, in the most awed voice I have ever heard him use, "Wow. Zombie crows."
   That boy takes after my own heart with the zombie crows, and he has also happened to watch too much Resident Evil with his auntie (me).

3. Have you ever seen that commercial for the show, I think it's called Adventure Time, but I might be confusing it with something else that is on Cartoon Network, and they ask over and over again whether you like things? Do you like dogs? Do you like cats? And they ask these questions in a sort of a rhythm? Well, that commercial was on the other day, and I decided that I needed to continue to aggravate my daughter with it, so after it was over, I continued to ask her whether or not she liked random things. I finally thought of chickens, so I asked, "Do you like chicken?"
   Exasperated by my inane questioning, she snaps "NO. I only like them when they are dead and I get to eat them."
    Carnivore. Guess she isn't gonna be signing up for PETA.


   That concludes my sharing of random things that the kiddos in my life have said. I'm sure there is more, but frankly, I am mainly writing this blog because the time is 7:40 p.m., and I am insanely tired. However, I have to work tomorrow, and I know my sleeping habits. So I know that if I go to bed now, I will wake up at midnight, and not be able to get back to sleep until around 6 a.am. And I have to get up at 7 to get the kiddo ready for school and then I have to stay up so that I can go to work. So this is my 'I am tired but can't go to bed yet so I need to keep occupied' blog post. Thanks for reading it!

Unsupervised Kids

   Everywhere. Literally, there are unsupervised kids everywhere and I don't understand it. I know that you are busy; I know that you can't be a helicopter mom, but there are times when not paying attention to your kids borders on neglect.
   Every day, when I pick my daughter up from school, we walk home with a gaggle of unsupervised kids, and often, I will be the only adult visible in a sea of anklebiters. True, the apartment complex that I live in is so near to the school that the bus doesn't run there, but in order to get to the school, the kids have to walk along the sidewalk that borders a fairly busy major road. This road always has traffic. Then they have to cross it. In the meantime, on the way home from school, I have witnessed kids pushing each other into the road, kids throwing rocks at each other and into oncoming traffic, and kids reaching out their hands and trying to touch passing cars. And since I am the only adult around, I have to yell at all these kids. The argument could be made that what these kids are doing is none of my business, but seeing a kid get hit by a car, and maybe even killed, would really ruin my day. Forget my day, that would ruin the whole damn year. I may not like your children, but I want them to live, damn it. What's wrong with you that you don't have this same desire?
  Another instance of parental stupidity is not knowing what your kid is doing while they are on bikes. You can't be up your kid's ass every second of every day, but you should know their maturity level. Some kids are not old enough, mentally, to take their bikes down the road. They don't have either the knowledge or maturity to follow safe pedestrian rules and guidelines. I don't live in the frickin' country. This is a pretty busy place for kids to be just cruising along well-used roads with no adult in sight. When I can't pick up my daughter from school due to work, she takes the bus to Grandma's, and I walk there to pick her up. Walking back one time we witnessed two girls about my daughter's age crossing the road at the cross walk on their bikes, but they did not have the walk sign. Meaning that oncoming traffic had a green light, and it's a good thing that all those cars had good brakes. One poor woman stopped so close to one of the girls that she could have reached her hand out of the window and touched her. Scary, and the girl got all upset because the woman was very audible in her cussing, but to be honest, I wanted to cuss too. There are times when something you see scares you so much that you just know that you are gonna die a few years younger just because you witnessed the incident. This was one of those times.
   Another incident occurred in my apartment complex, when a little five year old took a head dive off of her bike. Blood everywhere, not an adult in site; me frantically trying to figure out where she lives so that I can get her to mommy. If I had known this kid, I just would have taken her to my apartment and patched her up, but having no knowledge of the temperament of her parents, I didn't feel safe doing so, because some people's eyes would just light up in hopes of a fat lawsuit. Or if the child is being abused, and they need a scapegoat.... People can't be kind anymore, we have to worry about getting bit in the ass when we do. Eventually, some older kid who knew her came along, which was a relief, because I don't have a cell phone and was fixing to just start banging on nearby doors in hopes of hitting the jackpot. But how do you let a five year old out on a bike, with no helmet or safety gear, and at least not have an eye out for her welfare? Someone could have totally snatched her, and with all these girls being found years later after having to survive brutal conditions, this should be the concern of any parent with a child.
   I let my daughter out to play, so  I know things can happen in an instant, but she isn't allowed to go out of earshot of the apartment, and I check on her periodically just to make sure she is not in trouble. This little five year old was crying and crying, and no mom or dad came to rescue her and kiss her ouches. Not good. I really don't like to be judgmental, but this is not good parenting. Like I said, you have to let them learn to do things on there own, true, but they also need to be the right age and have the right maturity level. Your kid shouldn't be walking home from school unsupervised if they are of the mentality where pushing another kid into a busy road sounds like a good idea. It's not a good idea. Be a parent. 

Things You Shouldn't Do To Your Cashier -- Part 4

   Oh the fun we have, us cashiers. We get a bad rap sometimes, and that is what these lists are for: to set the record straight. I've said before, and I will say again, I am not a customer-hating sales clerk from Hell sent to make your shopping experience as miserable as possible. If nothing else, if I were totally self-serving, that would be bad for the hours. But despite all my retail experience, I still like people. So when the line is moving slow, these are some of the things that hold us up. If we seem unhappy, these are some of the troubles that come with the job. That's all these lists are for; setting the record straight. So again, here's a list of things that should not be done if you want to have a smooth, trouble-free shopping experience. Or if you want to help me in my never-ending quest to continue to like people.

• Confidential Information Folks -- I don't give it out: I know you are thinking info about the other cashiers, and that is true as well. I am not gonna give out any detail about them or their life or their work schedules. But I am also talking about other customers. Namely their method of payment. I am not telling you if the person in front of you used food stamps. That is private. And if you saw the card and know, I am not going to talk about it with you. It's rude, judgmental, and if the tables where turned, you wouldn't like me chatting up another customer about your private financial matters. 
• I Am Not The Bank: Cash back; it can be an issue. I would love to give you fifty ones, but I can't. I don't have enough in my drawer and I have to be able to serve the customers behind you. We are supposed to give our supervisors at least fifteen minutes notice of money needs because they are doing 5,000 things at once, and cannot just drop everything to take our cash order. If things are running smoothly, I can take at least three big order customers in that fifteen minutes -- probably more. I need change in order to make change. Makes sense, right?
• My Eyes Are Not A Debit Card Reader: I can't look at your card and tell you the balance. Yes, people do this. If you have food stamps, you have to run your card and put in your pin. If you have debit, you have to go to an ATM, the bank won't let us check that. Seems that they think your financial information should be private. Banks are funny like that. 
• Alcohol: Don't buy alcohol and then go drink it in our public restroom. Why would you do this? Why?!?!
• I Don't Need Help: When I am scanning items, I don't need you to push more items onto the scanner. This really messes things up. Usually things get double scanned and then I have to void. If I am weighing produce and bulk and you push something heavy on there, you end up paying a lot more for that weighted item unless I void it all and redo. If I void to many times, my register locks up and I have to get a supervisor key. Which means that you and every person behind you has to wait even longer. Hope you aren't in a rush. 
• Babies Cry: What the heck am I supposed to do about it? 
• Don't Give Your Kid A Toy And Then Make Me Take It Away!!!: What is wrong with you? I am not your kids' authority figure. I am my sister's kids' authority figure, but not yours. I don't even know you, and I feel like scum. That poor kid got his/her hopes all up because you handed them a toy and then you make me take it away? And now your kid is all crying and looking at me like I am a DEMON FROM HELL. Thanks for that. 
• You're Not Smiling Big Enough: If that's all you have to complain about, you have it good. Be happy.
• Code All Bulk Food Products: You want to know a secret? I don't know white rice from jasmine rice, but one is more expensive. Please code that stuff. Bulk food sections in every store that I have ever been in, working or shopping, provide pens for that very reason. And searching for the code in my register computer; that takes forever. We have multiple pages lists, and things are not always in the spot you would expect. Unless you want to wait while I look... And wait, and wait, and wait. 

   And in case you missed the first three lists, here are the links to them: List 1  List 2   List 3

This now concludes today's list of things you shouldn't do to your cashier.

Scary Movie Nights

   My sister and I love to be afraid, but we hate to be afraid alone. Hence the birth of scary movie nights, which are nights where we stay over at the other's apartment, let the kids run rampant in their rooms, fix a nice dinner for everyone, and let the terror begin. Except, some nights there is not much terror, because horror is really a hit-or-miss genre. Some of the stuff we have watched was really, incredibly stupid. Lose IQ stupid. We are dumber people for watching those movies, literally.
   But some nights we do find the hit. And then it's awesome, because there is nothing better then sister-baiting after a good scary movie. After Paranormal Activity, every time there was a strange noise, I took great joy in telling my sister that it must have been Katie. We watched that movie when we still lived together, and in the apartment we lived in, we had a funny burner on the stove range. When you would put a pan on this burner, the pan would slide off. Sometimes not right away either; sometimes the pan would wait until it was full of hot food and then slide off, and I swore up and down to my sister that this was the work of the demon from Paranormal Activity.
    After Sinister, waiting for my sister in the car to take the kiddos to karate, she came up and asked who was sitting in the driver's seat. We all replied no one, because no one was, but she insisted that she had seen someone, so I took the opportunity to lay the blame at Mr. Boogie's feet. She didn't even want to get into the car after that.
   Recently, we watched Mama, and as I came back into the room after spending time getting ready for bed in the bathroom, as she was just drifting off into dreamland, I leaned over and whispered softly into her ear,  "Momma." Which earned me my favorite reaction yet, her sitting up in bed and shrieking "GOD DAMMIT, Marie!!!!" My sister is a really loud person, with a voice that carries, so I would not be surprised if all my neighbors heard her lovely sentiment as they drifted off to slumber land themselves.
   These are the best moments for me; the awesome moments that really make all that family time really worthwhile. Sister-baiting is the greatest entertainment in the universe. Of course, the strangest thing of all is how my sister gets so frightened in the first place, because she doesn't actually give her complete attention to the movie playing. During the scariest part of any movie that we watch, if you look over at her to see her reaction, you will notice that she is not looking at the screen at all. She will be on her computer playing facebook games, glancing at me to get my reaction so that she can tell when the worst is over.

...

...

...

There are no words for that.

   

What Trauma Did You Inflict On Your Nose That Made You Unable To Smell That????

  I have a real issue with something, and my sister laughs at me and calls me strange, and well, that's not really the worst thing that she has ever called me, but I digress. This issue that gives her the giggles is my pet peeve about people buying rotten potatoes, and the fact that I won't buy potatoes bagged in plastic. If I buy bagged potatoes, they have to be in netting, and I have to be able to see every single one of them. Otherwise, I am picking through the potato bin, because to me, there are no smells that I have come across that smells worse than a rotten potato.
   I know, this is strange. I can hardly blame my sister for calling me strange and a weirdo, but I work as a cashier, lets not forget. And this is relevant because all of you little food eaters, you shop at grocery stores. And most of you buy potatoes. And I have to scan those potatoes when you come through my line with them, and when they are rotten.... it's really bad.
   Have you ever smelled rotten potatoes? This is the thing that I cannot fathom: why do people keep coming through my line with a bag of potatoes that obviously has at least one bad one in it? Because that smell, really strong. To describe the smell, I would have to say imagine a three day old dead fish left in the sun to rot, except worse. How can you not smell that? My sister swears that she can't smell that, but I think maybe she killed her sense of smell somehow, because it's really strong. Sick to my stomach strong. And even worse that the smell is the amount of liquid that bad potatoes produce. They produce pools of liquid muck that carries the smell, so that when a customer slams a bag of grody decay onto my belt, the liquid oozes into the cracks of the conveyor belt, which means that I am smelling that God-awful, sick-to-my-stomach, nose-hair-melting smell ALL DAY LONG. Not to mention that when I pick up the bag, usually some of the liquid gets on my hands, and no amount of hand sanitizer removes that smell; you need a full scrub, and I am talking a ten minute surgeon scrub, not some little rinse and dry. Otherwise, that smell is going to stick to your hands and  you are going to smell that smell wherever you go, and frankly, in my own opinion, skunk smells better.
   So good luck with that stink, but me, I'll pass. These days, I've memorized all the PLU codes (codes that we enter for produce, which pulls up the price, if you didn't know) to the bagged potatoes, so if you come across the cashier frantically saying "I don't need the potatoes on the belt!!!" Well,  there's a good chance that you've met me.
   But seriously, this is why my sister calls me weird, but I am not sure that I am willing to take that from her. This woman swears that she can smell fevers, so who's the weirdo?

Happy (Almost) Mother's Day

Better than flowers and hangs right in the entry.

   Mother's Day. The day to celebrate the perfect mother: the one who has perfect hair, and perfect clothes, the perfect body, and the perfect culinary skills. Okay, whatever. Now put the fake mommy delusion back on the shelf with the rest of those sentimental bullshit Mother's Day cards, and let's celebrate real moms.
   Real moms know that stepping on a lego or a toy car is the best way to find out how many cuss words you can say in under a minute, because that shit HURTS. We watch our kids somersault off of the back of the couch, ricochet off the wall and slam face first into the coffee table, and then get up like nothing happened and laugh at us because we are making hilarious faces while we recover from the massive heart attack that we just experienced. Real moms stay up until four in the morning with sick kids, then turn around and get up at seven to go to work and pray to God that they do not end the day explaining to the police why they turned into a homicidal maniac.
    We aren't perfect. We are real people, and we have days when the kiddos are gonna damn well eat some corn dogs or hot pockets because if we end up in the kitchen today, someone is gonna die. Our houses look lived in instead of spotless because cleaning up after kids is like trying to dig your way to China; no matter how much work you do, there is still more dirt. We get blood on our good clothes because we need to clean and kiss a boo-boo and make it all better. We try not to gag as we clean off buggery faces while we wonder why the hell the kiddo's snot is that strange-ass color. We assist in making mud pies, in planting stick gardens, and building forts.

She made it black because that's my favorite color. 

   When the kiddos need help with homework, we are the ones furtively sneaking online, because we can't even remember what the heck the quadrilateral formulas are, and we bite our tongues and suffer through it even though at no time since the end of school have we needed to know quadrilateral formulas, which is why we can't remember them in the first place. We encourage the entrance of experiments into the school science fairs while hoping desperately that nothing blows up or catches fire. We go to school choir concerts instead of rock concerts, and we chaperon field trips even though we don't feel like dealing with other peoples' kids. We laminate artwork, and hang that shit up on the wall like they are priceless masterpieces, because to us, they are.
    This is being a mom. We can't be described by some sentimental poem on a Hallmark card, because we are better than that fake piece of perfection. We transcend the need for perfection, because the best mom; she's someone real: someone who makes mistakes. She's someone who gets up and holds the house together even when she feels like she is going to explode. She has mornings when she yells at everyone because no one seems to be able to get their ass in gear, and she has evenings where the dishes are going to stay dirty because she needs to go to bed early and forget that the stupid day ever happened. This is motherhood; this is what we celebrate on Mother's Day. So happy Mother's Day, to all you real moms out there. I hope you have a great day.

Survival Horror Games

   Resident Evil was the first. The one that started my fascination with survival horror games; I love being terrified to open a door on a video game because something freaky as hell is going to pop out. This started my love of horror games even though I really suck at them. I really do; and don't play 2 player with me because I WILL shoot you in the back, and it will be on accident, but your character will still be dead, and a few seconds later, mine will be dead as well. I do better in single player modes, where I can't accidentally shoot my ally. And this is a good thing, because my family won't play that shit with me even if I wanted them too.
   Which is funny, because that first Resident Evil? That was my sister's game. She bought that shit and brought it home when we were wet-nosed little tykes getting on our mother's last damn nerve. And now? She won't play that shit. She is scared. Bock-bock-bock chicken. But she loves to watch me play, she just stresses too much if she is in control, and she won't move and her character will literally just stand there because she is too worried about what is behind the door. The creepy music starts playing and you know something is fixing to happen, and she is covering her eyes with her hands and telling me to tell her when it's over. She won't play them, but she comes over to my apartment to watch me play, which is nice for me because I'm bock-bock-bock chicken too, but I can be braver if I have someone with me.

This game is scary.

   But the big thing is, if you play these games, you might have realized that they are not scary anymore. Resident Evil is basically a shooter now, with hordes of zombies sure, but the fear factor is gone and in it's place is the need to kill as many mutated T-virus infectees as possible, and that's not really scary. Not to me. And I think I am right because my daughter, she can watch the new Resident Evil games, and while you might be thinking, "You let her watch that crap?" the answer is "Yes." Because my daughter has a unique ability not shared by many -- if she doesn't like seeing something, she leaves the room. If it freaks her out, she walks away and goes to her room to watch Animal Planet or Disney or play Mario on her Wii. She's a smart girl. Which means that Resident Evil: the new games don't scare her because she doesn't leave. But let me start playing Fatal Frame: she is gone. Uh-uh, no way, she isn't watching that if you paid her. That's how I really know that survival horror games just aren't horrifying anymore.
    So this is my gripe. I love the old games, and I was thrilled when Fatal Frame was available for download off of the Playstation Network, but where are the new scary games? How are we going to raise a new generation of survival horror-gamers if all we have is weak-ass, non-scary shooters pretending to be horror? I know that this is just my own opinion, but I still think it's a valid complaint. I know that I have heard this same gripe out of other people's mouths, so I know that I am not alone. Bring back survival horror!!!

My Education Rant

   Every parent that has their child enrolled in the joke that we call the public education system has some kind of major issue with the way our schools are run. I have a bunch of them. I can't help having them; this is my child. Of course I am going to be concerned about the education she gets.
  One of my issues is all this testing. I don't agree with all the damn testing that the kids have to do. I'm not just talking about the standardized testing that they do once a year, although that sucks. My daughter loves

school, but they are doing that MSP testing right now, and she is all tense on the days that are her turn for the testing. And my daughter is good at tests. She has not made a bad score on any of those standardized tests; in fact, she tends to blow those standardized tests right out of the water. And my feelings are thus: if my daughter is so nervous about them, what about the poor kids that don't do well on tests? I feel so bad for those kids, because these tests are not a true measure of their knowledge or skill. And that isn't all the testing anymore. They get weekly tests on math that are timed and they get AR tests on their reading. I could never pass one of the timed  math tests that my daughter has to take. I can work the problems eventually, but not all 50 of them in ten minutes. Not happening. And AR testing? My daughter picks up a book, and she doesn't wonder if the story is good. She wonders how many points she will get for AR testing. See, for those of you that are not familiar with AR testing, each book is worth a certain amount of points, and at the end of the book, you take a test, and the amount of points you get is based on how many questions you got right. This is not what reading should be about, in my mind.
   I have an issue with all this testing because I feel for the kids that aren't good at taking tests. I am not good at taking tests, so of course I have sympathy. My mind does crazy things come test time. I'll be trying to find out what x equals, and my mind will wander and the next thing you know, I am not thinking about PEMDAS,  I am thinking about what would happen if Wolverine caught Umbrella's T-virus... Or I am trying to remember what the cons are to wind power for my environmental science, and I start thinking that it's lucky that fictional worlds seem to lack STDs, because otherwise all those people in the Game of Thrones would have genital herpes. My mind wanders to these strange places when I am trying to test, and if a grown-ass woman has these types of problems testing, you can bet that some of the little kiddies do too.
   This does not mean that I think that all the kids should be passed just for effort, or that I believe in encouraging slackers, but this does return me to one of my most familiar gripes: the insistence of society that all people fit into the cookie-cutter molds. Kids do not learn in the same way, because THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. So these tests that some kids have problems passing, all they are showing is that these kids are not getting taught in a way that connects with them.
   Which brings me to my second big issue: funding. Teachers: bless their big-ass hearts, because they make shit money, and their classes are overcrowded and they often don't have recent equipment, such as texts and computers, ect. Each kid is gonna learn differently, but try teaching every kid differently when you have thirty kids in a class and an hour for the subject. It's not gonna happen. And every time the state calls for a budget cut, what goes first? Well, I don't know about all your states, but here in Washington, it seems to be public education funding. How is that good planning? We need to pull ourselves out of a recession, and how are fixing it? By making sure the next generation is twice as ignorant as we are? Not a good plan, there. Forget the next generation of scientists and doctors and teachers and politicians; we are raising the next generation of 16 and pregnant. Whoopee!! Who needs an education? Because by making public education our last priority, we are sending the message that education doesn't matter. Because if it did, we would have cut the funding for the new lanes at the four-way stop outside of my work and left the school's already depleted funds alone. The new lanes went in, and certain after school activities were cut from my daughter's school. Makes sense, right?
   Oh, the trouble our educational system is in. I have a smart, smart daughter, but she is an easy kid to teach.  Doesn't mean that she is smarter than a kid that is harder to teach, all this means is that she makes connections more easily. And I don't really have the answers; I just know that we have a problem that needs a solution. It's a conundrum. 

Little Talks

   My daughter says some crazy things, and she always has. In order to capture the zany attitude that my daughter possesses, I have kept record of some of the conversations that I have had with her. And of course, now I am going to share them with you.
Butt Cracks
   This first one happened before she was even in school; while I was on the phone with my sister before she moved to Washington and still lived in Kansas, and I noticed that my daughter's pants had fallen down.
   Me: "Honey, pull up your pants; your butt crack is showing."
   My daughter, extremely offended, "My butt is NOT cracking!!!"
   And my sister heard her response and still gets a chuckle off of the memory.
Babies And Where They Come From
   This one happened in Kindergarten in the line waiting for school to start.
    My daughter to her friend, "My Auntie told me where babies come from!"
    A bunch of excited ass kids start listening avidly like she has discovered the secret of Santa Claus, and my daughter continues, "People have babies the same way chickens do!!!"
    My daughter's confused friend, "But how do chickens have babies?"
    My daughter, "I don't know but I'm gonna find out! They have animal books in the library."
    Another kid, "We can watch Animal Planet!"
   Me to the other parents who are now giving me the stink eye, "I had nothing to do with this, I swear."
   Later, after school and after I explain that human babies and chicken babies really have nothing in common, she asks me again where babies come from. "You don't really want to know, honey," I say.
   "Yes I do, and I'm never gonna stop asking until you tell me!" she exclaims.
    "Okay, but I warned you. Babies are made when a momma sleeps with a daddy-"
    "Stop! Stop!" screams my daughter, "You're disgusting! Don't talk to me anymore!"
    "You asked."
    "Nope. Don't talk to me."

I'm not eating whatever that thing is, especially if it's soupy. YUCK

What The Heck Are You Asking Me To Eat?
   My daughter after school, more recently, probably about a few months ago.
   "Mom, we need to have soupy-chicken-fish for dinner."
   "What the hell is that, and whatever it is, I'm not eating that."
   My daughter, giggling, "But Mom, I want spoupy-chicken fish."
   "No. How about chicken?"
    "Is it soupy?"
    "That is disgusting."
Death By A Zombie-Spider-Octopus-Eagle-Dragon-Scorpion-Lobster-Acorn
    "I made up a new monster in school today!" my daughter tells me as I pick her up and hands me a picture of some freaky thing that she imagined. "It's a zombie-spider-octopus-eagle-dragon-scorpion-lobster-acorn."

Better than a normal zombie. 

   "Say that again."
   "And you want to be killed by it instead of a regular old zombie."
   "Um, no. Say that name again though. Really fast."
   "Yes you do. Why would you want to meet a regular old zombie when you could meet this."
   "I'll pass. Say that name again."
   "You love zombies though. You want to be eaten by mine," my daughter says between giggles.
   "No. Say the name again."
    "I can't. I can't remember what was in it. I'll write it down when I get home and can look at it."