Crime and Punishment
"Punishment!" Eli 3.4, Chief Justice, has made his ruling. He picks up his stuffed kangaroo, the defendant, as he delivers his verdict. It is unknown whether he will be merciful in light of the young Joey in the kangaroo's pouch."You are punished!" He's moved on to me now, and I don't have a Joey in my pouch, so I'm looking at hard time.
"What am I being punished for?" I ask innocently, beginning what I hope will be a series of questions that will end in a Perry Mason-esque triumph.
"You are bad," he says firmly. "And you must be punished." Vigilante justice.
"What if I promise to be better?"
"Nope," he says. "I think you need a time out."
This is all part of Eli 3.4's strategy to turn the household justice system upside down. If he gets time outs, then he's going to give them first. If everyone else is in time out, nobody can give him one.
Then there's the diplomatic immunity card, otherwise known as "playing harp-it." He was smashing a plastic dish into his table yesterday, and the noise level was reaching rocket launch proportions. So I came out of my study (Gloria is immune to all noise now--her hearing has been permanently destroyed) and walked over to the construction site.
"Could you please make less noise?" I asked.
"Sorry," he said. "Practicing harp-it." Nothing personal. He's practicing. Eli 3.4 is the world's foremost harp-it athlete, a vaguely defined sport that involves making as much noise and as big a mess as possible. He's also practicing harp-it when he tries to take the gallon milk jug out of the refrigerator, or jumping off the couch, or scattering a hundred toys on the floor. Fortunately, he doesn't have to practice very often to retain his world-class harp-it skills, so we don't see this very often, but when he needs to hone his fine edge, look out.
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