Mean Grumpy Old Man

The Offending Offspring
and her own little BLESSINGS from heaven

When my kids were babies, I made the promise to NEVER use "BECAUSE I SAID SO" as an an answer, not realizing, me with all that LU freshly acquired knowledge of everything there is to know about everything there is to know.

'Twasn't long before I learned that when dealing with a toddler's vastly super logic and innate ability to boggle the very firing of the synaptic neurons of a certified PhD, (I had to learn words like that to out boggle them) that sometimes you are bound by the father's code to us the dreaded words.

Well, not I, said I to myself, my most rapt and attentive audience. I will make a VOW - SWEAR AN OATH to never utter the dreaded words. WE, of the royal sort, shall out boggle the toddlers, who, after all, only toddle, and occasionally poo their nappies, but clever timing can get US (still royal) out of that, too. WE shall royally declare in its stead "BECAUSE I'M A MEAN GRUMPY OLD MAN!"

There's a reason God said to never make vows or swear oaths on earth (But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath. But let your “Yes” be “Yes,” and your “No,” “No,” lest you fall into judgment.James 5:12).

The first time WE uttered our clever utterance, OUR youngest child impaled OUR heart (and OUR funny bone) by sticking her lower lip out so far a Tomcat could land on it, began to quiver it with miniature earthquake proportions, tears falling as rain from her tiny blue eyes as she loudly, determinedly and vociferously proclaimed "you're not mean and you're not grumpy and you're not old!" (4 U of the TEXTI GENR8SHUN, that's UR NOT MEEN & UR NOT GRMPY & UR NOT OLD)

Over time "you're not old" got misplaced, and one day, when WE must have really annoyed OUR wee one, the abbreviated version had several stuttered, faltering false starts before she finally said, with great determination, vehemence, and abrupt finality, YEAH, YOU ARE!

For Fathers day that year I got a customized T with a Gold cup on the front emblazoned with the words #1 Dad.

The back read MEAN, GRUMPY, OLD MAN!

I Wore it until there was not enough of it left to wear.