“Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“The Interrupting Cow.”
“The Interruptin…”
“MOO!”
It’s a good, healthy thing that there’s generally chaos around our dinner table. We are a bunch of Interrupting Cows — we have things to say to each other.
For Doc, it’s usually something about her work.
For FD, it’s about some questionable activity she wants us to let her do (or pay for). Maybe it’s more questions about how she’ll pay for her someday car/apartment/college.
SD mostly insists on recapping — in excruciating detail — the Octonauts or How to Train Your Dragon episode she enjoyed before dinner. (She remembers nothing about her own day, of course.)
I don’t talk much at dinner. I mostly just enjoy them, though I do offer the occasional reaction or weak joke I immediately regret. I may also volunteer an update on some news story no one else cares about.
What exactly are the rules for avoiding conversation collisions? It’s something that’s becoming pressing with yakky SD when it comes to telephone calls. Suffice it to say that she thinks nothing of interrupting a phone call of mine or Doc’s.
On the other hand, when I dared speak to her on the way to school this morning during an imaginary phone call with Heather (who doesn’t exist IRL, I should note), I was sharply reprimanded. (She left the phone “off the hook” when she got out of the car to continue talking at the end of the day.)
I work mostly at home, and as I’ve noted before, I’m mindful of making time for my girls. But phone calls. Should I be adopting the hard line with SD at this point? Maybe so. She clearly has with me. (Thanks, Heather.)
I know every kid kids has to be dissuaded from interrupting grownup phone calls at some point. When I’m on a business call, for sure, but even on personal calls, it’s rude to make someone on the line wait, right?
Maybe SD’s shushing me to talk to Heather is an indicator that she already knows better. Hm. That decides it.
Let’s see how this goes. No more Interrupting Cows, unless it’s dinnertime.
Eyecatcher by Sammo Hoi.
