True Confession: I like to verbally abuse infants. In a calming, soft voice. I figure they can’t understand any words until they’re 8 months old or so. So I’ll say things like “Don’t be such a baby!” or “You’re so immature! Grow up and act your age!” or “What kind of thoracic surgeon are you going to be if you spit your binky into your patient’s chest cavity?” or “What kind of lawyer needs to have his diaper changed before he pleads a case before the Supreme Court?”
Oh, and take it from me, be careful when you give an infant the finger. If you’re careless, they’ll grab it, stick it in their mouth, and start gnawing on it. It’s especially painful if their incisors are just breaking through.
Every time I see a dog in the street, I roll down the window & yell “DEAD DOG!” at it in hope that the owners are nearby & round up their wandering pooches.
For added shenanigans: A guy I once knew trained his dog with “Dead dog” as his play-dead command. If you should–by some slim chance–happen across a similarly trained dog and yell at him, he might suddenly fall over and stick his feet up in the air.
I cry back at them. If they are only putting on a tantrum to get their way, they start looking at you wondering what to do, and often you can tell they are really having difficulty keeping a cross look on their face as they start to laugh.
When they try to cry louder as if to say “I can tell you are pretending”, cry louder back … “I can cry louder than you ! Wahh ! Wahh !”.
Give a hug and a tickle and a kiss, and pretend to cry at them some more, bring them out of their selfish “its all about me” attitude.
Of course they may actually be randomly sleepy or hot or somewhat upset by not having their toy/food/tv channel but you get to test if they are doing it on purpose or they really postal.
I don’t abuse babies or the dog, but I do discuss things with them like the stock market or current news events. I got my ten month old great-niece to stop crying by telling her about Lance Armstrong’s doping allegations in the Tour de France.
And the dog was always up for a discussion of coding problems when I worked from home. I described how I was dealing with some queueing problems, and he was most interested.
I always tell my cat I’m going to cut her tail off and beat her with it if she doesn’t behave. She just kind of looks at me and blinks. I don’t think it’s sinking in.
Well, my infant talk was more like pleading “why, why are you doing this? Don’t you ever sleep?” Or “how can anything possibly make that much shit and pee in my face at the time?” (New mothers - no, no, that doesn’t really happen:eek:)
Horses would occasionally get told to get the hell off my foot.
My dogs are regularly and lovingly told, with coos and scratches, that they are the dumbest dogs on the planet. They regularly forget where the back door is. The one they just went out. Call them, they run right back to you, and past it, and slide to a stop, look around, then see you and come back. My mom’s dog I taught to sit, down, long stay, over and shake in one day. My dogs we’re still working on sit when there’s a dog biscuit on the line. Dumb but sweet.
In a cooing voice, I tell my two rabbits (often while scritching their nose or back) that they’re bad, they’re ugly, they’re lucky we love them because no one else would, etc., etc. (Naturally they’re very sweet and even trained to do some minor tricks, so it’s complete nonsense.)
My roommate and I often, when KatieCat is in earshot, discuss the 2 kittens and the friendly puppy we’re going to get because Katie’s job performance just isn’t up to snuff. And when roomie goes out, I’ll tell her that Dad’s gone away, he’s never coming back, and you’re going to die of starvation.
Sometimes she’ll turn her head towards me when that happens.
