Confessions of a bad parent

First a little house keeping and then I'm going to tell an excruciatingly cute story about the daughter creature (fair warning).

I want to thank Kendra (sorry Kendra, I've got no bookmarks anymore and I can't find your blog!), Inky, Imbrium and Beverly for the mail! I have responses written and have been carrying them around in my purse waiting for the postage fairy to come and put stamps on them, but I hear that the postage fairy makes the same rounds as the unemployment check fairy, so I expect to see her little winged self sometime around next Wednesday.

Thanks especially Inky for the pirate bandages (I'm hoping for a paper cut, but if I haven't got one before the pirate party (in 10 days! panic) I will wear one anyway), Beverly for the fabric featuring Kiwi birds (only from New Zealand, who knew there was such a thing?) and Imbrium for saying that I was wickedly funny (I feel warm and fuzzy!).

Now...for those of you who feel the vomit rising at the mere mention of cute stories about children, consider this your final warning.

I suffer from Bad Parent syndrome, or perhaps Naughty Parent Syndrome would be more accurate. I get an unholy amount of fun out of tormenting poor daughter creature with false or misleading information. For instance: count day. This is a manditory attendance day because it's when the school district notes the number of students in a school and sends out those big checks. Much noise is made about count day, and there are posters and announcements for months reminding you not to get deathly ill, or end up in the hospital or anything. I told her, with a perfectly straight face, that count day had been rescheduled because they lost count and had to start over again.

This pales in comparison to some friends of mine who told their daughter that "Santa Claus bites," so don't look at me like that. They have a picture of their daughter sitting as far away from Santa as possible while still technically being on his knee.

But why am I writing about this? Because I feel like I might have gone too far, specifically in the matter of the "swirly."

You probably already know what a Swirly is, but just in case there are some people who were home schooled or something I will define it. A swirly is when you hold someone upside down, dunk their head in a toilet and flush...thus causing their hair to swirl around their heads. Voila, a swirly. It's right up there with wedgie in the lexicon of modern American English.
Daughter Creature heard me tell someone that I was going to give them a Swirly, and she said "I want a swirly!" "No, you can't have a swirly, maybe after you clean your room." "Okay!" and off she ran to clean her room.

I didn't give her one of course, being dunked in our toilet probably qualifies as some sort of biological torture, but neither did I tell her what it was. How could I ruin the fun (for me) by explaining it? Is there anything funnier than an eight year old who stamps her foot and shouts "I won't clean my room unless you give me a swirly," or begs "Please please please can I have a swirly? I've got all my homework done."

But here's my fear. Someday she's going to run into someone that really will give her a swirly...so how far do I let this go before I break down and tell her...and how do I tell her? After more than a year of holding out the swirly as a possible treat (I think she envisions it as some sort of extra special smoothie) how do I tell her that it's really all about beind dunked in a toilet?

Ragnar...the worst, just the worst.