The Best Babysitter in the Land.

We high five everything in this house. "You finished your homework? HIGH FIVE!" "We have a toaster? HIGH FIVE!" "Fifty cents for a mint condition copy of Fifth Business? HIGH FIVE! AND ONE MORE TO YOU, MR. ROBERTSON DAVIES!"

We also like to offer high fives, as a reward system. It isn't uncommon to hear, "Could you grab me a muffin from the kitchen? I will give you a SUPER AMAZING HIGH FIVE." Sometimes this works, and sometimes this doesn't. It depends I think on the amount of high fives already given on that day. I mean, if you've already experienced 8 or 9 high fives, the one more high five offered for you to get off your ass and go all the way to the kitchen isn't going to make that much of a difference.

But, in the middle of an 8 a.m. high five this morning I posed to Max, "What if we like, did a new high five?"

He's supposed to be getting ready for school at this point, but what the hell. It's an important question because really... I've re-invented the high five from across the room concept, but that's only going to amuse us for so long.

We tried this weird thing where you do circles in the air without your hands touching, but I'm pretty sure I saw that very same thing in Demolitian Man, and I've come to the conclusion that it's probably best to just totally distance myself from that film as much as possible. Like, I don't want people to think I'm not cool.

So, anyways, we're trying out new versions of the high five when I say, "HEY. What about a Vulcan greeting?" We did that, but ultimately decided that the Vulcan greeting shouldn't just be cheaply thrown around hither and yon.

But this lead to other topics of conversation -- precisely, the Vulcan Nerve Pinch and When Is It A Good Time To Use It.

I told Max he should wait until he meets a Vulcan who can teach him how to best implement it, and when to use it, because you don't want to just wipe out the whole playground with it and then have no one to play Yu-Gi-Oh with. Secondly, like, he should really wait until he's perfected his ninja skills, because a ninja who could incorporate the Vulcan Nerve Pinch would probably be the best, most awesomest ninja in the entire GALAXY.

And I think that's really something to strive for in life.

Labels: Adventures in Babysitting, Sarah Land