Her Bad Mother

Sunday, June 3, 2007

A Clockwork Sippy Cup


Hurts your eyes, doesn't it? That's the Naughty Corner From Hell. We call it the Ludovico Naughty Corner. It's where toddlers go when they've been very, very, very bad. When they've done something far more serious than just smear a tube of lipstick across your carpet or taken their Crayola Washable Marker to the decidedly unwashable cat. When they've done something that undermines the very fabric of Western Civilization. When they've stolen pickles or chocolate or small rubber duckies made by nine-year olds in China.

Stealing is bad. Don't do it. If you're a parent, and you stand by and do nothing while your toddler - who has only the flimsiest grasp of property rights in advanced capitalist cultures and must be taught, and taught well, the principles of private ownership and the evils attending to transgressions of same - pockets a miniature cucumber, you should be punished, too.

You should be locked in a room, strapped in a chair, watching clips of Winona ripping off Saks - spliced with scenes from the musical Oliver! and David Hasselhoff's videos played backwards - on an endless loop, with the soundtrack to WonderPets running at full volume.

Then maybe you'll give this whole oh-she-didn't-know-it's-only-a-pickle-a-chocolate-a-ducky claptrap another think. 'Cuz one ducky is all it takes, people. One ducky is all it takes before ALL the toddlers are snatching duckies and taking our credit cards and and drinking our beer and calling for revolution and turning North America into a Mini-Maoist wasteland, littered with beer-sticky sippy cups and crayon-scrawled placards and cheap-assed Made In Alberta duckies and ruled by a bicky-sucking, blankie-toting military prole dictatorship.

Which is why, whenever WonderBaby snatches a pickle from the produce aisle or pockets a stray binky or lifts a rock from the fountain outside of the casino in Niagara Falls, we do something about it. We set her right. We reprogram her.

The fate of Western Civilization depends on it.

********

Memes, and contests, etcetera, oh my.

33 Comments:

Blogger flutter said...

*snort* oooohhhh nooooooo.

Save the Wonderbaby, save the world.

1:13 AM  
Blogger crazymumma said...

A pickle? After the phallus stuffie?

My gawd woman, what have you wrought?

she looks terrified.

1:13 AM  
Blogger SciFi Dad said...

err... if I'm not mistaken, he prefers to be called "The Hoff" now... and he refers to himself in the third person, so you don't want to mess with the Hoff...

7:08 AM  
Blogger S said...

What a riot.

A Clockwork Blue.

As she wipes the tears streaming from her eyes...

7:13 AM  
Blogger Jenifer said...

I remember well finding things in my stroller that I had neither wanted or paid for and the confused faces when I would try to return the items. One young and obviously bored clerk told me to just keep it!

It is important though, and you are smart to set things (and children) right. They will thank you later when they are not serving 5 years...

7:50 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Oh dear, I have some rocks that need to go back to the YMCA parking lot.

8:08 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Personally, I don't think I could have said it any better than Rodrigo. Hear hear!

A Clockwork Sippy Cup..? You, my friend, are my kind of funny.

8:56 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

fantastic.

I need a wall like that in my bathroom...sure to get her going.

9:03 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Haha....

I love your humor and sarcasm combined.

9:53 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

OMG, I need a wall like that. With some booze and some Hoff pics. I wouldn't leave that corner for DAYS.

9:56 AM  
Blogger Magpie said...

She marked up the cat?!? Boggles the mind.

10:26 AM  
Blogger Laural Dawn said...

You kill me.
I have been following the rubber ducky story - hilarious.
We have a few pilfered items at our house. Not pickles, mind you.
My son likes to steal gum at the grocery store.
I don't know why. I will buy it when asked.I don't think he knows the difference.

10:31 AM  
Blogger Mimi said...

What a photo! And yes, it's making my eyes swim. I can't tell if WB is looking contrite or mischievous ...

12:32 PM  
Blogger Her Bad Mother said...

Mimi - WB never looks contrite.

1:00 PM  
Blogger Lawyer Mama said...

I nearly peed myself laughing, HBM! After I picked myself up from the floor by my desk, I thought "Oh dear. My kids have purloined rocks from all over North America." It's a good thing they don't have passports yet.

1:54 PM  
Blogger Cathy, Amy and Kristina said...

That's by far the cutest inmate I've ever seen.

As for any additional punishment, you convinced me with that scary mention of the WonderPets singsong.

3:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mine eyes! Those stripe are enough to make me quit stealing forever.

3:34 PM  
Blogger BOSSY said...

You so crazy, sister girlfriend.

3:49 PM  
Blogger moplans said...

I am not really sure what she did (was it a pickle and a duck?) but you are doing your parently duty. Very suitable punishment.

3:59 PM  
Blogger ewe are here said...

Looking at the picture makes my eyes cross.

When my sister was a chubby little thing, she'd sit in the grocery shopping cart and 'shop' while my mom shopped. She'd pluck things randomly off the shelves that came within her reach and then put them under her dress. My mom used to literally have to pick her up and shake her down at checkout time.

5:07 PM  
Blogger Erin M said...

thank god you're putting a stop to this swiping insanity- she might otherwise end up a serial killer or something


Tessa is a collector too. I wish I had walls as effective as yours

5:21 PM  
Blogger Beck said...

My Baby attempted to make off with a purloined chocolate bar the other day. I made her return it to the shop person with an abject "sorry." The store person thought the contrite baby was such a pitiful and adorable figure that she attempted to give The Baby the chocolate bar.

6:51 PM  
Blogger Lady M said...

Oh, the danger of the slippery slope! One day, we bribe the child with a gingersnap to get back into the carseat at a highway rest stop, and the next day, we're checking out visiting hours at the county pen.

That picture is awesome.

3:00 AM  
Blogger Queen of the Mayhem said...

I completely agree with you! I still remember my mom making me tell the manager at Kmart that I had taken some gumballs. I was 4 and I am 33 now! That is why I marched The Princess back into Target and made her return a bouncy ball she had lifted!

Keep on saving the world...sister!

10:01 AM  
Blogger Run ANC said...

Love the picture. Love.

I saw a kid walk away with a train from the Thomas set at Chapters. Watched it happen in real time. Was too chicken to say anything, but man I wanted to. Needless to say, the parent didn't come back with it. And now, there are no trains at Chapters, only a lonely train track.

11:12 AM  
Blogger Christine said...

This was a riot! I once stole a chapstick when i was little and had to return it, horrified. I now have a real life addiction to chapstick. I need help.

11:16 AM  
Blogger Mom101 said...

Did you know that if you play the WonderPets soundtrack backwards it says David Hasselhoff is dead? It's true.

2:40 PM  
Blogger Julie Marsh said...

Cats are most decidedly washable. Been there, washed that.

And did you know that SpongeBob and Patrick rode The Hasselhoff?

5:26 PM  
Blogger Her Bad Mother said...

Mom-101: hahahahahahahaha!!!!

9:47 PM  
Blogger Her Bad Mother said...

Also, all - that's not my wallpaper. And I don't really make WB sit in corners and burn her corneas on bad graphic wallpaper. We have our own little ducky sweatshop out back, and we put her to work.

9:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

So funny! I think I just about peed my pants. Couldn't agree more. Those grocery checkout lines are tempting places. Just last week I trotted my preschooler back in with the Pop Tarts he pinched.

10:50 PM  
Blogger EE said...

I'm with you, girl!!!!!

10:22 AM  
Blogger Gray Matter Matters said...

You are absolutely right, and I'd write more, but I have a car dealership I need to get to right away...gulp.

2:50 PM  

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