In no particular order. Culled from various posts and emails where I quoted them.
4/7/12, kid #2:
“I wish *I* was a nerd”
5/5/12, kid #2:
“no matter where you go, you’re on top of the world”
7/29/12, kid #1, on Martin Prince from the Simpsons:
“I think he _wants_ to get punched. I think he _enjoys_ it.”
7/8/12, kid #1 on college:
“Change my name, get contacts, start a whole new _punk_ style…”
5/5/12:
me: do you like reggae?
kid #2: what?
Me: this kind of music (Bob Marley playing)
kid #2: no. why would you think I would? I’m a little girl.
4/8/12, kid #1:
“I don’t pick up pennies if I drop them.. they will make some little kid happy, because it might be their lucky penny”
8/17/12, kid #1:
“Dogs are like friends. Sort of. You don’t walk your friends. And don’t talk to your dogs in front of people, only in private”
10/16/11, kid #1:
“Shel Silverstein wrote some _weird_ poems!”
2/13/15, kid #1, context lost in the mists of time:
“Oh no no no, I forgot my eyes! I forgot my eyes!”
3/2/12, kid #2, watching “Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern”:
“I want it, I want it, I want it!”
7/1/12, kid #2:
“Almost nothing _men_ wear is fashionable.”
2/3/12, kid #1, on some “ninja warrior” type show:
“they don’t show the episodes where people die”
2/12/12, kid #1, on bluegrass:
“This music makes me want barbeque”
12/17/11, kid #1, on Reader’s Digest:
“Don’t tell anybody I was reading that. It’s a magazine that old people read to help them poop”
3/26/12, kid #2:
“The two words I hate most in the world? Funky and groovy”
4/27/12, kid #1:
“anything cute renders us helpless”
12/3/11:
“I’m crying because I know someday I’ll have to be a crazy old lady”
5/5/12, kid #2:
“we’re never going to be in the eighties, Dad, so why are you telling us about them?”
8/17/13, kid #1:
“We are living through one of those times that people are going to look back on and say we had good cartoons”
8/2/13, kid #2:
“Maybe old people like margarine because it sounds like an old person’s name.”
8/17/12:
kid #2: oh no.. it’s [boys’ name]. Do I have anything on my face?
Me: yes
kid #2: (wiping face) I’m gonna go annoy him, cuz I hate him.
9/22/13, kid #1:
“I don’t drink ‘normal’ coffee. I drink the expensive kind.”
1/31/15, kid #2:
“There’s a seed in this orange. I’m suing the company”
7/15/12, kid #1 to #2:
“That’s _not_ a vampire haircut”
1/9/12, kid #1:
“You can’t just say ‘I wish to be healthy’ when you make a wish, say something like ‘ward off illness’ or ‘summon great health'”
7/22/13, at the swimming pool:
kid #2: my arch enemy is in the shallow end.
Me: who?
kid #2: we do not speak of him. (quietly) lets get in the pool and ignore him.
9/2/12, kid #2:
“I don’t trust candy from little boys. I don’t trust little boys.”
12/23/11, kid #2:
“My life is awesome. Everybody thinks I’m so adorable that I get away with everything”
7/15/12:
kid #2: “I want to be a vampire”.
kid #1: “you’ll be seven years old forever”.
kid #2: “I meant when I’m sixteen”.
7/27/11, kid #1, on a Pac-Man wedding cake:
“I just love that. I want that for my wedding. If he doesn’t agree to it, I’ll dump him”
9/2/13, kid #2:
“Being so awesome is tiring”
5/22/11, kid #2, a positive review of restaurant ramen:
“I couldn’t have cooked these noodles any better myself!”
7/19/11, kid #2, on “orange” cough syrup:
“It doesn’t taste like the fruit, it tastes like the color.”
6/24/11, kid #1 watching the “Man vs Food” guy cry in pain from spicy bbq:
“I wish I could have some of that”
6/19/11, kid #1:
“So few people know that ‘thrice’ is a word”
6/19/11, kid #1:
“The closest thing to winning is losing”
7/24/11, kid #1, when learning the US was founded by slave-owners:
“Oh God that’s ironic!”
“But I thought they were the Good Guys!”
“Ooh I hate the government”
4/28/12, kid #1, on reading history:
“The underdogs you root for always turn into bullies in the next chapter”
10/12/13, kid #1:
“You said you were going to drop the bass, you just sat it down carefully. You need to throw the bass down like you hate it, break it into a lot of little pieces..”
6/15/15, kid #1 watching “Golden Girls”:
“I hope I find friends like that. Otherwise I’ll have to live in a one room apartment with just a cat to keep me company. I don’t want to wait until I’m *old* to live in a big house with all my friends. I want to do that in my 20s!”
3/26/15, kid #1 after learning about household budgets at school:
“I plan to be single and childless and live in a tiny apartment and eat ramen, so even if I don’t make much money I’ll be able to spend it on whatever the fuck I want”
10/18/13, kid #1:
“I found another idiot on the Internet!”
11/29/14, kid #1, on Ugg boots:
“these will go with my intense craving for Starbucks”
10/8/15 conversation after we saw a train carrying what look like giant pipes:
Me: “I bet those are sewer pipes. Someday they’ll be full of poop.”
Kid #1: (groans) “dad..”
Me: “Who knows, some of those pipes could end up carrying *our* poop.”
Kid #1: “dad, what the actual fuck?”
5/11/16: kid #1 got 2-weeks banned from miiverse for posting “you don’t have to be lonely at farmers only dot com” as a joke.
2/28/15:
kid #1: what kind of person puts cream cheese on a croissant?
kid #2: you’re just jealous you don’t have a croissant.
#1: I don’t want a croissant!
#2: you’re just jealous you don’t have cream cheese.
#1: no, I hate cream cheese!
#2: you’re just jealous you don’t have a cream cheese croissant!
#1: just eat it, you freak of nature.
#2: here. You must try the cream cheese croissant
#1: [takes a bite] that’s quality!
#2: who’s the freak of nature now?!
1/30/14: kid #1 has read all about “bigots” and “allies” from tumblr or somewhere, pronounces these words as “bye-gots” and “alleys”.
5/9/14, kid #1 assorted quotes:
“If you take yourself seriously as a shipper, you better get over homophobia, because everybody knows the most kawaii pairings are not straight”
“The boys that like me are the socially awkward ones that you feel sorry for. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great having guys that will do whatever I say..”
(Looking at drawings of women dressed like the anthropomorphic representations of foods) “this is what I’m gonna wear to the prom!”
5/12/18, kid #1 (be note this was said while my wife was in labor with kid #3):
“I’m legally changing my name to Mother Shabubu”
6/6/14, kid #1:
“When I go to college I’m gonna be that roommate everyone wants, because I’ll already know how to make ramen”
1/1/15, kid #1:
“The only reason anyone drinks Faygo anymore is because of Homestuck”
1/28/14, #1 on the state of “Invader Zim” fan fiction:
“Oh my god the Mary Sue’s have taken over”
5/2/14, kid #1:
“When I get in high school I’m gonna dye my hair teal, and people are gonna call me ‘that weirdo with the blue hair’, and I’m gonna be like, ‘it’s not blue, it’s teal!!'”
4/13/14, kid #1:
“let’s go out in ironically bad homestuck cosplay!”
3/11/15, kid #1:
“What if the characters on Regular Show aren’t actually anthropomorphic animals, what if they are just people in suits, and no one questions it?”
3/29/16, kid #1:
“When you’re a little girl everybody thinks you should love horses, but they’re terrible. They’re ugly and they smell and they are not anywhere as majestic as you see in the movies. I don’t mind My Little Pony, but that is the only exception”
12/15/15, kid #1:
“The internet was a mistake”
11/15/14:
(TV ad about how if you buy some thing you won’t have to pay until 2020)
Me: that’s when you graduate high school
kid #1: it’s like there’s a giant number “2020” gently tapdancing towards me.
#2: breakdancing towards you
#1: yes, gently breakdancing towards me
#2: you can’t break dance gently. You have to go all the way.
1/27/16, kid #1:
“I hate this new trend of getting girls with soft, smooth, clear voices to do voiceovers for commercials. Her voice makes me want to punch somebody”
5/20/11, watching some movie where a child cusses in one scene:
kid #1: “how’s a kid know those words?!”
me: “from movies like this”
kid #1: “oh, yeah..”
7/7/17, kid #1:
“Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and KFC – the Triple Entente”
10/5/14:
kid #2: I’m gonna work at Hot Topic.
kid #1: hopefully by the time you’re old enough to get a job, Hot Topic will be outlawed.
11/21/13, kid #1 watching fractal zoom videos:
“It’s like I’m a drugged-out hippie!”
5/23/17, kid #1, working on a big project the night before it was due:
“You know Mozart finished one of his symphonies just minutes before they played it live!”
12/23/14, kid #1, while at Whole Foods:
“Every class always has that one kid who smells weird because their mom is a hippie that only shops at Whole Foods”
7/29/14, kid #1:
“Animal Crossing is my anti-drug”
7/3/15, kid #1, on “Cats”:
“When I see the poster for it I don’t think ‘that looks like a respectable Broadway musical’, I think ‘that’s just a bunch of furries'”
7/19/15:
Me: why are you dressed up? We’re just going to the drive through, you’re not even going to get out of the car.. are you cosplaying!?
kid 2: no
kid #1: but you do kind of look like you could be a character from something
kid #2: then other people can cosplay as ME
2/6/14, kid #1:
“We can listen to some of your music as long as there’s no flutes involved”
(You make the kids listen to “Thick as a Brick” just once, and you never live it down)
1/7/16, kid #1:
“I have connections on the the Dark Web”
12/19/14, kid #1:
“Kids are terrible”
5/3/15, kid #1 on internet trolls, or something:
“Internet people are real live people. They’re out there somewhere. Just because they don’t live near you, doesn’t mean they don’t live near someone..”
4/24/14:
Me: do you have homework?
kid #2: no
Me: then what are you working on ?
kid #2: I have a list of kids who are paying me to draw ponies for them.
3/30/11, kid #2 on those touch-screen soda fountains:
“It’s like an iPhone that gives you drinks”
11/2/14:
Kid #2: “Can we go to one of those hipster areas?”
Kid #1: “They don’t have grumpy old people telling you to get off their lawn, they just have grumpy old goth chicks giving you disapproving side-eye looks”
7/22/17:
Kid #2: …something something something… had to shut their twitter account down.
Kid #1: glad to hear Furry Twitter is still woke.
Kid #2: yeah furries are accepting of everybody, unless you’re a fuckboy.
Me: what?
Both: nothing!
7/22/17:
(Listening to “don’t trust me” by 3OH!3, and the line “do the Helen Keller”)
#1: that’s so wrong, but it’s Helen Keller so I don’t care
#2: what did Helen Keller ever do to you?
#1: uh, I think she was racist or something… maybe she was one of those people that says they “don’t see color”…
7/18/15, kid #2:
“I don’t want to eat somewhere called ‘Pizza Den’. It sounds like eating pizza in some guy’s basement that he calls his ‘man cave’ but it’s really just where he keeps his figurines and watches anime all day”
6/12/14, kid #2:
“When I get a Homestuck shirt I’m gonna wear it to school and people will be like, ‘what is that shirt from?’, and I’ll be like, ‘oh it’s just a thing I like. You wouldn’t know about it'”
6/29/13, kid #2:
“I wish I had the power to snap my fingers and instantly make a baby stop crying”
7/16/15, kid #2:
“I would buy that place and open up a House of Witchcraft”
1/9/15, kid #2:
“Doraville: there’s more swiping here than we’d like”
1/7/14, kid #2:
“I wish it was like the 80s when there were arcades everywhere and you could just go to them anytime you wanted”
5/18/13, kid #2:
“The Harlem Shake is over three hundred years old”
10/5/14, kid #2, on Virginia Highland:
“Seems like the kind of neighborhood where everybody has a child named Caden who isn’t allowed to watch more than one hour of TV a day”
“This seems like the kind of neighborhood where the people all have stick figure families on their cars”
“..where the moms have all read ‘Eat, Pray, Love'”
11/17/15, kid #2:
“Remember when we thought the guy from AWOLNATION was Mr. Rogers?”
12/13/14, kid #2, mocking stereotypical geek fandom members:
“I’m not like other girls, I can read!!”
7/16/14, kid #2, wanting to be allowed to play “Cards Against Humanity”:
“I don’t have the mind of a natural nine year old, so I think I’m good”
10/10/13, kid #2:
“There’s a robot that can solve Rubik’s cube in 5.35 seconds and I want to watch it. Don’t crush my dreams.”
7/25/14, kid #2, unimpressed with “Sky Mall”:
“They expect you to put these in your home?!”
1/16/15, kid #2:
“Blame it on the fructose”
4/5/15, in Waycross, GA:
Kid #2: “What is that thing on the water tower?”
Me: “Looks like Pogo Possum”
Kid #2: “He doesn’t look like a possum he looks like a furry version of Squidward”
5/7/16, kid #2, watching an ad for goldfish crackers:
“This is just like Ouran High School Host Club..”
7/23/17, kid #1 seeing one of our dogs with a rawhide bone:
“She looks like she’s smoking a blunt!”
8/19/17, kid #1:
“the only way I’d be a cheerleader is if someone murdered me and turned my body into a marionette”
7/26/15:
kid #1: “me and some of the other girls had fake gay weddings on the last day of school. I married <rattles of two or three names>”
Me: “that’s polygamy. Do you know what that means?”
kid #1: “It means I get all the bitches”.
12/27/14:
9/2/17, kid #1:
“All the kids _like_ Broadway now.”
7/27/17, kid #1 eating some weird blue snack food:
“I feel like for every one of these you eat, that’s another month you have to spend in the underworld with Hades”
7/7/16, kid #1:
“Lisa Frank is true art”
4/21/16, kid #1:
“Why are all these anime set in middle school? *Nothing* happens in middle school!”
10/4/15, kid #1, disapproving of restaurant music:
“It sounds like the default desktop background image of Windows XP is yelling at me”
8/4/15, kid #1:
“I love YouTube channels full of nothing but lyrics videos with small spelling mistakes. You can tell those people haven’t been corrupted by the world yet. They’re just here for the music”
7/2/15, kid #1 (on further questioning she said she meant Ross):
“I can’t really remember what my elementary school science teacher looked like, so I just pretend he looked like the guy from ‘Friends'”
7/1/15, kid #1:
“Who needs to watch sports on TV when you can watch *anime about sports* instead?”
6/24/15, kid #1:
“They should call it *dumb* teens react”
8/5/15, kid #1:
“Isn’t it amazing how I started out as a baby but now I’m basically a fully functional human being who can do things for myself?”
4/23/15, kid #1:
“The only reason I’d want to be a parent is so I can make jokes. If my kid told me, ‘I’m gay’, I’d be like, ‘hi Gay, I’m mom'”
1/18/15, kid #1:
“I know I sound like a hipster, but new SpongeBob is crap”
1/17/15, kid #1:
“The only reason I’d ever sign up for Facebook is if I needed to ‘like’ something to get a discount”
1/16/15, kid #1, on Honey Nut Cheerios:
“I hate him! I hate that bee so much!”
12/24/15, kid #1:
“There’s a reason new stuff is popular: it’s better”
10/23/14:
“We’re pretty sure John Egbert is going to die [soon], so we’re building a shrine”
10/9/14, kid #1:
“It tasted good but I couldn’t stop feeling like we might be eating Menudo the band cooked into a soup”
9/18/14, kid #1:
“So this is why iMovie calls that effect the ‘Ken Burns'”
8/16/14, kid #1:
“You’re literally telling me that every time you see aviators worn with a hoodie, you think of that bomber guy?”
6/28/14, kid #1:
“Memes don’t belong on tv, they don’t belong on tshirts worn by kids too young to know what it is, they don’t belong in pop songs. They belong to the weirdos of the internet!”
6/5/14, kid #1, on “Sylvan Learning” and its ilk:
“Pay money to torture your child all summer”
11/12/15, kid #2:
“Justin Timberlake was in U2”
12/5/14, kid #2:
“Sometimes I think ‘this is a bad dub, I wish I was watching the sub’, and then I remember I’m not watching anime”
12/28/13, kid #2:
“Some people say vinaigrette, some people say vinaiGRAY”
11/13/10:
kid #2: “Too bad I can’t marry this hamburger”
kid #1: “But you’d just end up eating it”
kid #2: “That’s the point!”
2/13/16, kid #2, observing a man change the moveable letters on a tall fast food sign using a telescoping tool to grab them and put them in place:
“I wonder if he enjoys his life. I wonder if he’s satisfied with this occupation”
5/28/15, watching some “true crime” show:
kid #1: that cop looks really gay. Sometimes you can just tell by looking at a guy’s face. It’s in the bone structure.
kid #2: no. he’s married and his wife bosses him around a lot. And he doesn’t understand his kids at all. And he is always barbecuing but he’s terrible at it.
12/29/13, kid #2:
“We are the government, we take your money and kill things..”
3/4/11, kid #1:
“No real boy wears nice clothes”
10/4/13, kid #1, watching “Back to the Future”:
“Who names a kid ‘Biff’? It’s like you _want_ him to punch his way through life.”
“You can tell they’re supposed to be dumb, because they have cows”
“This still doesn’t make her likable, it just makes her a hypocrite!” – on 1955 Lorraine compared to 1985
“No guy who isn’t *looking* to get punched in the face would act like that” – on poor George McFly
4/12/13, kid #1:
“Maybe *I* could be a street performer someday”
4/2/11, kid #1:
“Anime people wear _short_ shorts!”
1/17/11, kid #1:
“Pizza doesn’t laugh. If it could make any noise, it would cry”
1/15/11:
kid #1: “I don’t want to grow up!”
kid #2: “Well you’d have to get bitten by a vampire to stay 9 forever. Apparently vampires aren’t real
12/29/10, kid #1:
“I hate nice things”
12/27/10, kid #1:
“My favorite thing about the holidays is getting a Pez dispenser, filling it up, and eating all the Pez in one day”
12/18/10, kid #1, watching “Hell’s Kitchen”:
“Most of the people that have been on that show committed suicide”
11/15/10, kid #1:
“I love nerdfights”
10/29/10, kid #1, watching “Seinfeld” for the first time:
“This is a horrible, horrible show”
10/15/10, kid #1, on the Iron Giant:
“He’s so cute! I like metal guys.”
9/19/10, kid #1:
“Kids don’t get tired”
8/20/10, kid #1 on computer shopping:
“Get one that has access to Google”
5/30/10, kid #1:
“How many Justin Bieber haircuts do I have to see today? It’s kinda creepy.”
12/12/10, kid #2:
“People are staring at us, wondering ‘why is he letting those little girls drink coffee?'”
7/28/10, kid #2:
“I wonder what Canadian people look like”
10/31/10:
Me: “How’s your steak?”
kid #2: “If I’m gobbling it down in one bite, that means it’s good”.
10/26/10, kid #2:
“There *is* such a thing as an upper-case ‘4’, you know”
10/6/10, kid #2:
“I’ve already told you, you should not mess with me”
11/16/14:
kid #1: here dad put my DS in your pocket and walk around wherever you see a bunch of nerds, so it’ll pick up street passes
Me: I’m not going to creep on a bunch of teenagers for you
kid #1: you don’t have to talk to them, just kinda walk near them
10/19/12, kid #1:
“Don’t be such an eight year old, Dad”
1/28/11:
kid #2: “how do you spell happiness?”
kid #1: “I don’t know, I’ve never experienced it”
9/28/12, adding two new goldfish to the aquarium:
kid #1: I wonder if the new ones have strange accents.
kid #2: Like British accents?
kid #2: They wouldn’t have British accents. All fish fear the British, because of Fish and Chips.
7/6/13, kid #1:
“You mean the government knows what I’ve been texting to my friends?! They know who I have a crush on!”
10/19/12, kid #1:
“I’m so high on pixie sticks I wont be surprised if I wake up on the curb”
11/29/14:
kid #1: The cops in my school only do three things. Enforce dress codes, bust kids for skipping class, and yell at the autistic kids for flapping their arms in the hallway.
kid #2: could you make friends with the cops so they won’t arrest you ?
kid #1: that only works in movies, not in real life.
1/20/12:
kid #1: some guy today gave me his watch and told me to fix it for him and then give it back to him on Monday.
Me: some guy? you mean like a kid your age?
kid #1: yeah, he’s in the same grade (fourth) as me but in a different class.
Me: why does he think you’ll fix his watch?
kid #1: he must have heard about me. I fix lots of stuff.
Me: at school?
kid #1: yes!
Me: like what?
kid #1: There was this really annoying sound in math class that you could only hear when things were quiet, but made it hard to think when you could hear it. It was coming from a little alarm that was connected to some electrical wires, and I saw there was a knob on it that said “turn to silence alarm”, so I started to turn it but you needed a screw driver to turn it with and I didn’t have one, so I started using a paperclip to turn it with. But the principal happened to be walking by and he thought us kids were trying to stick the paperclip in the electrical outlet, so he made a rule that kids were not allowed to touch that thing anymore, and now every day that alarm goes off and there’s nothing we can do about it. The principal didn’t give the teacher the chance to explain what I was doing..
Me: wait, your teacher knew you were messing with the “alarm”? Why did she let you?
kid #1: because I’m the teacher’s pet and she knows I know what I’m doing!
Me: well why didn’t she get you a screwdriver so you wouldn’t have to use a paperclip?
kid #1: for some reason there’s a rule against giving kids construction tools.
Me: I’d like to see this “alarm”. I don’t suppose you could take a picture of it? Do they allow cameras at school?
kid #1: I don’t know, but the other day some guy I didn’t know had his Nintendo DS at school and was taking pictures of me and the other girls with it without asking us.
Me: how old was he?
kid #1: about my age I guess. Why would a boy do that?
Me: I don’t know.. I think I’m going to walk you into your classroom tomorrow so I can see this alarm. I want to get there early so I can see it before anyone else is in the room.
kid #1: ok but don’t mess with it.
10/9/13, kid #1:
“So the New Testament is basically fan fiction.”
11/5/11, kid #1 looks at Hot Topic:
“no thanks, teenagers kind of scare me”
10/19/12, kid #1:
“Disney’s gone steam punk! It’s awesome!”
3/29/13:
Me: So.. you didn’t stay up all night reading fan fiction, you stayed up all night writing it?
kid #1: .. yes
6/29/14, kid #1:
“It’s a good thing you have a beard, Dad. Just having mustache is creepy”
9/26/13, kid #1 watches “Pretty in Pink”:
“I’ve got advice for you Duckie: stop being so creepy.. stop hitting on every girl..”
“I’m not sure what kind of hat that is, but I’m sure it’s not a guy’s hat”
“I would not even be able to talk to a guy who was wearing leopard shorts”
“I don’t care how gay that guy is, dangly earrings are for girls”
“[Andi] is the only girl whose hair doesn’t make me want to punch someone”
“She’s got relatively nice clothes for the time she lives in”
“She’s got stalkers, she can’t be that unpopular”
“I didn’t know hair could have that many spikes! Wow, I’m genuinely impressed!”
“The only thing that guy has going for him is long flowing poofy hair”
“That suit is so floppy! It looks like a suit that a business man would wear but it’s all soft!”
“I wouldn’t let [Duckie] into my home, much less my room”
“This should be a vine!”
“Blane is one of those names like ‘Brad’, and ‘Ryan’, that are always names for popular guys. Girls could be like hey ‘who’s that dork’, but if he says ‘hi I’m Brad’, they’re like ‘oooh, Brad!'”
9/28/12, kid #2:
“Every second gets us closer to when we die”
12/31/13, kid #2, imaging how boys think:
“Oh look a girl! I’ve never seen a real live girl before!”
9/29/12, kid #2, eating devil’s food cake:
“I’m gonna taste some Satan!”
7/31/11, kid #2:
“Someday I’ll get myself a princess job.”