Every parent knows the moment you cross the line and become a crazy slightly deranged parent...you can see that line in the two memes below...
Now before that moment is reached it needs to be noted that parents are master tacticians, negotiators and interrogators, its a skill thats developed by little 3 year old brains operating in these conniving mind control behavior manipulation tactics...I had a moment last night of watching my wife tactically avoid a potential public fiasco in seconds...twice...let me break it down for you...
So our family of 6 is celebrating a milestone and so we are out to eat in public...Fortunately we choose to go eat at like 415 so we will have minimal civilian casualties...We get in there, drinks ordered and my wife gets volunteered to take the ninos on a bathroom expedition, in the process our drinks come and I of course had to sample her marg...she noticed and was maturely able to maintain perseverance in the midst of friendly fire...PTL...Our server comes back, we order, each kid is able to order themselves with eye contact...or server is clearly impressed...my wife and I are keeping our focus in our success, putting our guard down would make us vulnerable to an a ambush...our chips n salsa are winding down and the crayons are getting dispersed around the floor and kid #2 says
"can i run 5 laps"
Mom casually scans the environment with the younger 2 in chorus saying "yea us too!"
She responds "sure! theres no other customers around, but you can't yell"
And bam three boys start their laps...with a genuine giggling noise pleasantly ringing through the northside of the restaurant...
we are winning...
during the 5th lap here comes our server and the chillens scramble back to the table...
Our first real challenge...
#3 and #4 ordered a corndog and fries - our server asks after getting the food in front of us
"do you guys need anything else?"
#3 "I dont like ketchup, can I have mustard?"
#4 "me too"
server "Im sorry honey, we dont have mustard"
#3 responds "but can I have some mustard?"
#4 as if unable to process the information, with a slightly raised tone "mustard!"
(now for all the non parents...these are the seemingly trivial moments that quickly turn into meltdowns of kids that you subconsciously judge...especially on airplanes...)
the server says "we have honey mustard, would you like that?"
#3 "i dont like honey mustard (understand that our kids have no idea what honey mustard is), I want mustard"
#4 is still obliviously chanting mustard
this is the moment...
mom goes "#3 honey mustard is mustard with honey it, like we put in your tea"
#3 looks at mom...looks at the server...
....
"Ill have honey mustard"
#4 as if synced with #3 "honey mustard!"
the honey mustard comes and both children try it...#4 is mentally engaged in his conniving tactics, trying to lick the honey mustard and then the top of the salt shaker (the real reason salt doesn't come out the salt shaker)...#3 says "I dont like this, it doesn't taste like honey"
Some people may put on their too good for you judgement hats and say my wife lied...I say master negotiator...
mom quickly responds "its fine #3, plus if you eat your corndog you can get your ice cream sundae (comes with the kids meal)"
just like that tranquility is maintained...and dad high fives mom...and the kids eat their food...and use the ketchup for their corndogs...
To the untrained eye these two moments are trivial and would be easily overlooked...However, as you can clearly see parents should be the pre req for the top tiers of all intelligence agencies negotiation and interrogation roles...