In a discussion of life values in our automobile-centric country, Éa asserted she doesn’t ever want a car and just wants to bike everywhere. But then, she realized this: “But I guess I don’t ever get a car and I just bike everywhere, I’m not part of the solution. I’m just not part of the problem. So what I need to do…is get a bus!”
Carla: What is going on here?
Sully: What? Oh, film development and a root beer float.
Carla: Sully, like, is stoicism.
Sully: I think I’m more absurdism.
It’s part of the routine, now, Éa. I haven’t missed a wibble wibble in a week!
— me
Carla: Sully, aren’t you going to the sleepover?
Sully: Yeah. Ha! I got sidetracked.
Carla: I didn’t know I was going to have to put Mr. Yuk on a candle!
Éa: It’s not my fault. You had delicious-looking candles!
“It’s not so much a battle of the sexes as it is a mutual aid society.”
— me, to Carla, about complementing one another and having learned to live together well
“I need either talked into or out of purchasing a drill press.“
— Sully, in a text to his mom
“I mean, you can’t just be a wimp and call yourself a pacifist.”
— Carla
Scott [handling small bottle near Sully’s backpack]: What’s this?
Sully: Oh, that’s my backup soy sauce. It comes in handy more than you think.
Scott: I’m kind proud of you, actually.
Carla: Oof, Sully’s YouTube video made me nauseated. Is that a thing? Can a YouTube video make you nauseated?
Scott: Carla, anything can make you nauseated.
“I just don’t picture myself as a secretary.”
— Carla, substitutes and budget secretary at Delta, to Heather, other secretary at Delta, standing in the Delta office considering a recent College Township job opening for a secretary
You’re saying I should give in to the vernacular?
— Scott
Worse comes to worst, I can go bush hopping: where I live in a bush and when that gets compromised, I hop to the next one. I have four in mind. Though it might be hard to get to the third.
— Éa, discussing the state of politics at the dinner table
Wait, is that a rule? We’re not allowed to have telepathic antecedents?
— Éa, in response to a gentle scold from Scott about a conversation he couldn’t follow
(a phone call while Carla, Éa, and Scott are away for the weekend soccer tournament):
Carla: Hi, Honey! What’s up?
Sullivan, 16: Hi, Mom. Where’s the alcohol?
All my good jeans are inherited.
— Éa
Scott: Hey, no pointing. It makes me nervous.
Sullivan: I wasn’t pointing. I was air-rubbing your teeth.
Carla: There’s a book I wanna read.
Éa: Me, too. But I finished it.
You said it was a long-term plan. So why start now?
— Éa
Carla: Except for Sully. He’s from Venus.
Sullivan: Are you saying beautiful and normally portrayed to non-school groups as naked?
For Christmas, can I have socks? Like, thirty socks. And wrap them all in cash.
— Sullivan
I somehow sneezed up my shorts!
— Sullivan
Oh, that’s just dirt from earlier.
— Éa, coughing
Scott: What needs to happen for a bill to become law?
Éa: Oh, I know! The bill needs to sing a song! 🎵