Monday, August 17, 2009

Death of a Thousand Cuts

Tears, actually.

E wasted no time in retaliating for F's opening salvo. Her strategy is pure genius and resorts to wearing the poor kid down by degrees. Infinitesimally small degrees. Her first shot was to tear his poster. Not off the door. Not in half. Just a tear large enough to be seen, but not enough to be considered intentionally malicious by a parent - namely, me.


F went ape shit when he saw the tear. (I was in his room preparing to read with him before bed and witnessed his reaction.) He claimed E did it on purpose. E feigned innocence and said that she did indeed tear the poster but it was an accident. F continued to protest that E did it ON PURPOSE. I decided to half believe E but told her to tape it back together.

To tell the truth, I have an ulterior motive - I want to see how this skirmish escalates because it is such entertaining blog fodder. With any luck this could be a protracted siege.

3 comments:

D said...

I feel like tearing the poster should be ok. Inflammatory remarks made about her = her right to remove them. No?

NJ said...

I think E needs a bit of coaching on fighting back. As the oldest of 9 (7 of which are boys), I feel uniquely qualified. Tell her to just mess with F's head. Place a few of his belongings somewhere he needs to look long and hard for them. Then once he puts them back, replace them again. It's all about messing with the other one but not getting caught.

IAN said...

this is some classic stuff. I wish my brother would have resorted to posterizing my alleged misdeeds instead of just beating the crap out of me. Your kids must be much more the intellectuals