I think I’m going to have a new -ism this fall. Usually, when the kids make outrageous suggestions (“You should give us all A’s on that test, it was so hard”), or come up with hare-brained ideas (“Let’s try letting us sit wherever we want”), I respond with something like,

“Then you woke up.”

The first time I use it on one of them, it usually takes a couple of minutes (and a couple of quicker ones helping) for him/her to get it. It’s also my private reference to their favored literary device (on the very rare occasion I let them write fiction): the dream. Their favorite “twist” ending is, “Then he woke up.”

But now, I have a more visual way of indicating my opinion of their suggestions. I found this today, and I can’t stop chuckling. We have a poster-sized printer at school, and I think I’m going to make a couple of new posters for my classroom. My wife and boy, who like to tease me about being a bit crabby, say we should retake the pic, with my grumpy face.

“How do I feel about that suggestion?”

atfirst1

butthen

I can hear them already.

“They’re the same picture.”

Duh.