Hell Hath No Fury

Let's pretend that you are three years old.

You entered this world in 2004 (or 2005, if you just turned). This was your first leap year. This is also your first recession. A gallon of gasoline has never been under $2.00. Saccharin has always been perfectly safe to use. Michael Jackson has always been a freak and never had a #1 hit. Same with Britney Spears. To you, it would seem that the Boston Red Sox are near-perennial World Series champions. There has always been OnDemand, satellite radio, GPS systems in cars, and phones have always taken pictures and movies. George W. Bush is the only President you've ever had. We've been at war in Iraq and Afghanistan for your whole lifetime.

You can talk just fine, but you don't pronounce the letters R, V or Z; you insert a W in there instead. But you've made a lot of progress on your Gs and Js, and it's becoming a little easier to understand you.

You have a decent-sized vocabulary, but you're no encyclopedia. You don't even know what an encyclopedia is. You don't understand that words can have two or more meanings, or that two or more different words can sound alike, so you look confused when someone says "I'm getting hoarse," "Zip your fly," or asks "Well, which way to the bar?"

Speaking of vocabulary, you know there's a few really, really naughty words out there, but you've rarely used them because you know you'll be in big trouble. Maybe you heard Mommy say them, or ... maybe you heard them from Mommy. I'm sure she's pretty careful with the big no-no's. Like the S word. Or the D word. Or the G-D word. Or the N word (never heard her say that, tho). Or the mother of all bad words: the F word.

OK, back to our exercise. Now let's also pretend that you have a little brother. Let's say he's one. And, just for kicks, let's suppose that you sometimes can have a short temper and go off for no reason. Remember, you're three years old - that's par.

Finally, let's throw in the scenario that your little brother, who just started walking less than two months ago, is starting to learn that he can communicate by making sounds, which you misinterpret as a sign that you're being jawed at.

You are angry. You are beside yourself with rage. You feel your three-year-old body begin to shake and your legs are getting all wobbly. You feel your blood starting to boil, and it seems like two big clouds of steam are going to burst your eardrums at any moment. Your little brother is on your last nerve.

How dare he "talk" to me that way! I've gotta say something back to him! What do I say? What's the worst words I could say?

So you reach into your three-year-old mind and pull out the most potent, venemous words you have. You hope these words burn everyone's ears when they hear them. You hope that grown men will weep when they hear them. You want the skies to open up and a huge thunderbolt to smash into the ground, annihilating every living thing around the impact zone for miles - and nothing would grow there for centuries. These are the naughtiest, most spiteful, most disrespectful words you know. Here they come!

"You're going to bed, poopy!!"

It worked! I was crying! =)