A Superior Comeback

(I am about seven or eight and fighting with my mum over something. She’s telling me to do something, but has no better reason than, “because I say so.” I don’t know the word for “child abuse” in Vietnamese, but I have been reading a lot of books, including a Vietnamese translation of “Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” a quasi-historical account of one of the bloodiest civil wars in Chinese history.)

Mum: “You’re getting a beating if you don’t behave! You are being rude and disrespectful!”

Me: *using terminology that is more suitable for a military setting* “Well, you are abusing your position as my superior!”

Mum: *stunned*

(Never one to waste an opportunity, I took advantage of my mum’s shocked silence and skipped away to another part of the house before she could say anything. Somehow, I successfully weaseled my way out of a beating that day. Sadly, it didn’t work the second time I tried it.)