Asking Questions vs. Asking For A Favor: How To Tell What's What

In  a recent mental argument I had with someone else (you know the kind -- where someone says something annoying/stupid/horrible in passing, you hear it and then you argue with them in your head for the rest of the day, even though you don't know them and will never have an opportunity to tell them what you think), I noticed that a lot of people think they are asking questions when they are really asking favors of people.
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"So, SchweetieWumpkins, will you be joining me tomorrow for the fundraiser for Hard Shell Lobster Rights? We're running the bake sale."

"Um, no."

"BUT SHWEETIEWUMPKINS -- I want you there with meeeeeee!  I really thought you'd do it! "

"Nope."

"Seriously?  I asked you very nicely!  You're such a jerk!  Why won't you do it?"

"Because I don't f$(#ing want to! Leave me alone!"

--end scene--
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In my head, I was scowling and muttering, "If you ask someone, you have to be able to gracefully accept that they might say no.  When someone is asked IF THEY WANT to do something, they are perfectly within their rights to say no.  No defense of their answer is needed. "

If, on the other hand, you really NEED the other person to do something for you, and you know you are not really giving them much of a choice in the matter, that is called 'asking for a favor,' and that goes something like this:
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"Ok, SchweetieWumpkins, I have a favor to ask of you.  I'm doing this fund-raiser thingy tomorrow. I need somebody to cover the bake sale booth for a couple hours.  I know you probably wouldn't do this if I weren't begging, but Marge got sick, and she was going to cover noon to 2, and ... well, I need help.  What do you say? Could you do it?"

"Well, yeah.  I guess so."
 [OR:  "Shoot. No, I can't. I wish I could help you out, but maybe next time?"]

"Ok, thanks!"
[OR: "Ok, thanks anyway."]

---end scene----
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I keep telling my kids that if you are truly asking someone a question, you simply MUST be prepared that the answer might not be what you want.
If you really need a certain outcome (like with a child who needs to get dressed), you tell them "You need to get dressed now."  Then you give them choices you can be happy with.  "Do you want to wear the blue dress or the t-shirt and jeans here?"
Acting like they have a choice when they don't is dishonest. *


What say you?

*Yoinked almost directly from Love and Logic TM.
 http://www.loveandlogic.com/

Unfortunately Hopelessly Inappropriate

Sometimes, even when (perhaps especially when) I'm trying to be sensitive to someone's feelings, I shove my size 9.5s firmly into my mouth.

Like the time a friend from grad school told me all about how her best friends were all gay men, and how rude people could be sometimes.  I, later in the conversation, said that something was "gay, but in the best possible way."  I NEVER use the word "gay" to mean anything but either homosexual or giddily happy.  Never.  But then?  That day?  Blammo. 

Then there was the student whose relative had died in an unexpected and somewhat grisly way.  During that lesson and the next one, I managed to use "dead-on," "deadly," "I'm dying here!" "you're killing me!" "one foot in the grave," and at least a few more corpse-laden words. 

Got financial trouble?  Surely, I'll talk about something "breaking the bank," or "sending me to the poorhouse."  Medical issues?  "Apple a day," "it's not like it's brain surgery!" or "that's like a CANCER in society!"  Weight struggles?  "Yo momma so FAT, she has her own ZIP code!"

What is WRONG with me? 

Sigh.

Simonism: ThunderCake

This evening, just as I was tucking the kids into bed, a thunderstorm was rolling in. 

I was in Simon's room, closing the window and the curtains, then I went to kiss him goodnight.  After the smooch, he urgently held up a hand to detain me.

Simon:  "MAMA!  WaitWaitWAIT!  There's a special kind of CAKE!  You can only make it when it's storming.  It's called "ThunderCake!"  You should make that.  Now."

Playin' With Da Beans -- a Memory

One morning, several years ago, I was feeding our then-baby boy while sitting on the couch.  I looked up to see our little beautiful blonde girl sitting on the floor in front of the glass front door.  The golden slanted morning sun was streaming through, filled with specks of dust.  She kept slowly, gracefully lifting her pudgy little pink hands into the sunshine, then she would carefully wave her little hands through the dust motes floating in the sunshine. 

I asked, "Allie?  What are you doing, honey?"

She answered, "I playin' wiff da BEANS!"

"Beans?  What beans?"

"Mama, da SUNBEANS."

Rodent + Radioactive Substances

Simon has a hamster named Coco.  Up to now, he's not had the best relationship with said rodent.  I believe it's because he didn't get how to hold her gently.  She let him know that she was unhappy by chomping him.

HOWEVER, he recently figured it out, and now they're the best of friends.  Like last night at bed time, I came in to kiss him goodnight, and he was on the bed, holding Coco and reading a science book.  He beamed up at me, saying, "MAMA!  I'm teaching Coco to read!"

Then he proceeded to plop her down on the book with each syllable, "Plu- TO- ni- um!"

We will have the smartest hamster ever.

A-HA!

Steely Dan -- Oh, the Possibilities

Today while driving with the family, we somehow started to make spin-off joke names from Steely Dan.

A tire shop?  "Wheelie Dan's"

A sushi place?  "Eely Dan's"

A shoe store?  "Heely Dan's"

A church?  "Kneely Dan's"

A compost supply store?  "Peely Dan's"

Fishing supply?  "Reely Dan's"

Deli?  "Vealy Dan's"

Teeny Little Memory -- Inappropriate Stickers

When my daughter was just a mere sprout, I was given a calendar or book or something to record Major Events in her life.  You know the type, right?

"I filled my first diaper!"

"First roll from tummy to back!"

"First smile"

and so on.

There were cute little stickers that had all these "firsts" on them, so you could simply stick them onto the dates.  Easy Peasy.

Except that I never did it.  By the time she'd done all the "firsts" on the pages of stickers, I found them.  Whoops.  But recycler that I am, I thought "what shall I do with these?"

I came upon an answer.  I taught flute sectionals to a group of 5th graders each week, and I thought, "Hey.  This will make an excellent randomly weird kind of prize!  Like a gold star but BETTER."

That Friday, I was getting them to play a scale or something.  When they successfully completed it, I'd randomly stick a sticker onto their heads or shirts or something.  One girl giggled when she got, "First tooth!" The next laughed at "Says Ma-Ma!"

The next kid asked, "What's a 'bris'?"

Whoops.

What If...

What if you could cross a Polar Bear with a Poodle?
A Poodlar Bear.
And how cute would THAT be?

What if, occasionally, your hair just randomly stopped growing?  Wouldn't that just be a crapperoo?  Like, "Not to worry, that haircut with the too-short bangs will grow out."  And then "OH NOES!  It's like this for a YEAR!!!"

What if one could control one's fertility through sheer force of will and thought?  Wow.  Wouldn't THAT change things up?

Martini Post

This is a disclaimer.  I have had what I like to call a Cactini.  Meaning, a martini all shaken up with the fruit of a prickly pear cactus.  Or something.  They are these oval things.  They have many seeds.  And the fruit is a delicious red.  More fuchsia.  And I CAN NEVER spell fuchsia right.  Ever.  Who put the S where the C should be?  WHO? (who, who whowho who?)

Anyway.  CacTini.  Yum.  And I like to think, nutritious.  I'm betting cactus pears are Super Foods.  If not, they should be.  Like Pluto should be a planet.  It's morally right. And peanuts.  Can we just agree that they are NUTS? If just for consistency's sake.

Anyway.  Again.  Wouldn't you love to live on the Prime Meridian?  You could just put that as your address.

Sandra Dee
Prime Meridian

Get your letters that way.

Or possibly the Equator.

Erica Sthalllhshire
Equator.  7th parallel.

Boneyfied: It's Getting to BE Too MucH

Don't know why I did it, but yesterday I read some article about the kid Trayvon in Florida.  That's a sad, sad story.

But that's not what's getting to me.  (I mean, yes.  That is very upsetting to me... But ....)
It's the comments.  Oh boy.

Did none of these adults (I presume they're adults) have a decent English teacher in 4th grade?  Where did they learn to write?  I don't even mean misspellings.  That can happen to the smartest of individuals.  But the CAPITALIZATION?  Why do people Randomly capitaLize things?  It's like they learned their capitalization and punctuation in Germany or something (They capitalize all proper nouns.).

Also, even though I said that misspellings are not a capital offense, just MAKING UP spellings is really not cool.  FASHESD.  ("Obama is a Fashesd.")  WALLAH.("I was getting ready to go, opened the door, and WALLAH, he was already standing there!").

My personal favorite yesterday was "boneyfied."  Try to figure it out in context:
"Shes a boneyfied model." At first, I thought they were accusing her of being anorexic.  Then, after a moment it came to me.  Bona fide.  

I really do get that there are words that challenge people.  OK.  They're, their, there.  I know.  Yuck.  But really.  Boneyfied?  Eccentera?  (As in, "I think he's a jerk, a butthead, eccentera.")

I think I'll try one of my own.
The dog was phanteng because he was hot.

I give up.

Plutocracy

Simon, once again, sitting and eating his breakfast.  He's taken to reading the political cartoons in the newspaper, but, being 8, does not quite get them.

S: Mama?  What is 'plutocracy'?  The government of Pluto*?

Me: Um.  Plutocracy.... Yes.  Government of Pluto*.  They don't hold elections out there.

S: //rolls eyes and sighs//

[*Note: In our house, Pluto is still a planet. I'm old school like that.]

Ranting From RFML Soon!

I'm so 'cited!  The spectacular Lydia at Rants From Mommyland agreed to post one of my babbles over there!  It's going up sometime this coming week, and I'm nervous.  Over at RFML, they have lots and lots of readers -- like, totally more than 4.
What will they say? Will they comment?  Will they hate on me?  Eeep!

So, if you're visiting from RFML, welcome to my cocktail lounge.  Don't lick the mirrors.

Mental Lint: Giant Bonsai

I was reading Jen on the Edge's post http://jenontheedge.com/2011/10/07/loose-change-and-ephemera/
(I'm sure there's a way to do that in a nicer, prettier way, but this is the best I've got for now) and it inspired me.

Anyway -- I realized that I have some schnibbles of ideas drifting around, and it's helpful to just corral them into one place.

GIANT BONSAI
Several years ago, my husband, Dr. Smartypantz, picked up Bonsai as a hobby.  If you don't know, it involves taking little tiny trees and making them (over a long period of time) look like really BIG, OLD trees.  It involves wires, teeny little cutters, and cute little pots.

For example:

Aren't they sweet?

Sadly, Dr. S tends to kill them well before they get to the adorable stage.  Sigh.  Well, his talents lie in other areas.  Like baking chocolate cookies.

Anyway.  We went out for dinner one night, leaving kiddo #1 with a babysitter!  Blissful adult time!  So we went to a sushi place in our little Indiana town.

As we pulled up, I admired some beautiful, gnarled trees in front of the restaurant.

Like this, but not this.

"Look!  GIANT BONSAI!" I cried.

The hubs looked at the Giant Bonsai, and shook his head.  I heard him sigh, "Hon? They just call those things 'trees.'"

Oh. Yeah.

New Word: "Grosstipation"

What, you may ask, is "grosstipation"?
It's when you get so grossed out by something that you can't ever imagine eating again. 

Today, I cleaned out my dishwasher.  I mean, cleaned CLEANED my dishwasher. 

To give you perspective, we've lived in this house for just over four years.  In that time, I didn't know that you could remove the black rubber seal around the door, the plastic cover to the filter, and the thingy that spins around on the bottom. 

Oh yes, you can.  So these things have been collecting goo all this time.  Now, I'd gone in with a paper towel now and then and wiped up obvious accumulations of slime, but ....

If you can afford to have somebody clean yours for you every year (or six months? every other week? I have no idea, actually), do it.  It's like making sausage:  nobody really wants to know the inner workings of the process.

You know the little grayish gelatinous goobers you sometimes find in the bottoms of coffee mugs in the dishwashers?  Tip of the iceberg, my friends.  Tip of the grosstastic, greasy, grubby, mysterious iceberg of filth.  Think chunks.  Chunks that fall into the steel sink with an audible "plop."  Some with more of a clunk. 

Every time I thought I was done, I'd turn something over and I'd realize that there were untapped wells of slime -- chunky or smooth, your choice.

Now that I'm done (oh, sweet JEEBUS, let me be done), I can't imagine eating.  Drinking.  Ever.  Please, make it stop.

Simonisms

My little son is 7, and he's just full to the brim of questions and peculiar statements.

Yesterday:
"What I learned today about Llamas and alpacas (we had just gone to Lamafest at our local university):
A "reserve" champion is in second place, they use only one "l" when they are talking about both llamas and alpacas, AND... don't leave chocolate in your pants pocket."

Today:
"Mama?  Does light get MADE?  And does ENERGY get MADE?  Can it get UNMADE?  Do light particles go right through you?  What about energy particles?"

Mama?  Why was Confucius so famous?

Mama? Why don't they make a drink that is "Hi-D" too? (he had just had a drink of Hi-C)

Words: Girl Language vs. Boy Language

I'm not talking "Mars vs. Venus," here.  I'm talking about using words that imply that being a girl is lame, or that to be a boy is to misbehave.

"Boys will be boys."

Or a football coach yelling, "Move it, ladies!"

It drives me nuts.  I haven't found the words to describe why I hate it in military or sci-fi TV or movies, they call female senior officers "Sir."  My husband says that it's just tradition.  But they don't call the junior officers "Master" or anything.  Why not call the women "Ma'am"?  Is it so hard?  Why is that a position of honor and influence earns these women the 'right' to be called Sir?  Ugh.

And the whole, "boys will be boys" thing.  How demeaning to boys.