(no, i’m not stuttering; that’s to the tune of “happy birthday to you,” you fucktard. copyright infringement at its finest!)
okay, knowing how old you are is just one of those things – like what noise which animals make, and whether or not they cry when at the hidden-thumb “i’ve got your nose” trick – that complete strangers will use as a litmus test to judge how smart your kids are.
now, a kid’s age is not something a kid can figure out on his own. he has to be told, repeatedly, “YOU ARE XYZ YEARS OLD.” then, you have to practice asking him how old he is, and force him to reply with the correct number; bonus points awarded if he holds up fingers (bonus intelligence points if it’s the correct number; bonus cute points if it’s the wrong number.)
so the twits just had a birthday, and we decided to finally go ahead and drill them on the correct answer to that pop quiz, since even though they can articulate all kinds of complex ideas (like “oooone… twooooo… fweeeeeee…. fooooour…. fiiiiiive…. five! there’s five black people in this room!” and “jokerjitsu has bumpy ears because he fights. he’s THE MAN!” and “NoDamnSense lives in the mountains WAY UP HIGH and FAR AWAY! that’s okay, we’ll go find him at christmas!”) they can’t answer that question correctly, and strangers assume they’re retarded. a sampling:
STRANGER: how old are you?
SPAZMONKEY: my name’s SpazMonkey!
STRANGER: okay. but how old are you?
SPAZMONKEY: i like cheese!
STRANGER: well, okay. how old are you, then?
DRAMAQUEEN: no.
so, we did the “hold up this many fingers” and question-practice routine a few times around their birthday, and they got it down fairly quickly. so the other day, when a stranger asked SpazMonkey how old he was, i wasn’t worried.
STRANGER: are you guys twins?
SPAZMONKEY: yeah!
STRANGER: how old are you?
SPAZMONKEY: i’m crazy.
oh well. since he was wearing a buzz lightyear shirt, superman pants, and spiderman shoes at the time, and he can’t pronounce “schizophrenic,” that’s as good an answer as any.
