Speechless and Amused

When my kids were young and asked to do something that I really did not want to let them do, rather than having the kid have a meltdown when I said "No", I would always say "We'll see" and hope that they either would forget about it or eventually tire of asking and the crisis would be averted--without my ever uttering the word NO.  This worked for many years but then Nick got wise....

Nick was in elementary school when he asked to do something and when I answered "We'll see" he countered with "We'll see just means NO later!".  Wow. He was right and it left me speechless but amused that this little human was calling me out. I loved it.

Yesterday I got to witness the next generation of child psychology vs brilliant child when I went to dinner with Nick and his kids.  While Nick was tending to the baby, my grandson grabbed the salt shaker and decided to season his rice....a lot. When I told him to hold up on the salt, his Daddy quickly grabbed the shaker from his hand and this exchange went down:

Nick: You just ruined your rice.

Kid: No I didn't.

Nick: Yes. You. Did. You put too much salt on it. Go ahead and take a big bite of it and tell me what you think.

Kid: (Takes a huge bite of his rice, looks at his Daddy) Mmmmmmmm.

Speechless and amused.

That Was Hairy

To give you and idea of what kind of therapist/client relationship I have with this fellow, I offer exhibit A. Last Monday when he arrived for his weekly massage he found me under my kitchen sink battling a pipe that had broken off my sink. I yelled "Help, like I need a man kinda help! Help!" and he dashed into my kitchen and helped me patch up my sink....before he got his massage. I could list an entire alphabet of exhibits and still not be able to cover all of the funny and/or amazing things I have shared with this man over the last twelve years. Yes, I have worked with this client since 2006. So before y'all go overboard with client boundaries.... He has been a WEEKLY client of mine for TWELVE years. I have worked on his wife, children, in laws, personal trainer, employees.... I am somewhat involved with a lot of people in his life, by his design, so our therapist/client relationship is unique. He knows my family and he brings my animals treats. We cross refer clients. And we are friends. Unique. So I wanted to share our history before I shared this funny story....otherwise y'all might think I was an asshole...or a bigger asshole.

My client wears a toupee, but not during his massage. In fact for many months I did not know he wore a toupee because he was bald every time he came for a massage and I only learned of the toupee when I saw him at HIS office.  Sometime later I noticed he would take it off and leave it in his car before he came into my office. But tonight he came zipping in the front door, obviously rushed and frazzled WITH his toupee on. After passing out treats to the critters he realized what he had done and said "Ah hell I wore this thing in here" and he popped it off and laid it upside down on my dining room table....... And neither one of us thought this was weird.

Fast forward 90 minutes.

He came out of the treatment room to pay and reschedule next week's time. Brutus started begging for more treats and Oni was suspiciously absent. My client told me she was under the table and when he bent down to pet her (Imagine my look of horror face) he found his toupee.  "OMG PLEASE TELL ME SHE DIDN'T DAMAGE IT!?"  After a close inspection he chuckled and said it was "all good" and then he added "Lordy if she had torn that up...."  I said "I would have been broke trying to pay for your hair!" We both had a good laugh.

Unique.