"How was camp today?" I asked.
"It was fine," Alexis replied. AS ALWAYS.
"Did you get to go into the big gym at all?" I continued. It only took me approximately forever plus three days to figure out I have to ask specific questions if I actually want to have a conversation with the kid about what she does all day long.
"Yeah, but only once," Alexis replied. "It was super boring."
"Why was it boring?" I asked. I was assuming they played some sort of team sports, which would be boring for her. Her camp is kindergarten through sixth grade, so I would guess that team sports end up with the littlest kids sort of pushed off to the side after a few minutes.
"The Americans were boring," she said.
I had to think for a minute, but I figured out what craziness she was spewing. A couple of times per week, the camp brings in someone to do a presentation or lead an activity or whatever. There had been a Native American themed event that morning.
"Do you mean the Native Americans?" I asked.
"Yeah, the Native Americans." she said. "They were really boring." She yawned as she answered, as if to pound a few more nails in the BORING BORING BORING. Did I mention that she said it was boring? She said it was boring.
"Why was it boring?" I was surprised by her assessment. As a North Dakotan, I attended approximately a crap-ton of Native American presentations as a kid, and never particularly found them to be painful. Annoying, sure. But not THAT bad.
"All they did was dance around and make noises," Alexis reported. "And they wore hats that were really dumb."
Things were starting to get interesting. Here was the short person being highly critical of a group of people, totally not realizing that SHE IS ONE. Mr. Husband is part Native American and while you won't catch him wearing a headdress or anything, I thought it was funny that she was all, "THEY ARE SO BORING."
I filled the kid in on her family history. She fell silent.
"I guess the rain dance was kind of cool," she finally muttered minutes later.
As we sat gathered around the kitchen table, I urged Alexis to tell her dad about the Native American presentation she had seen that morning. I was REALLY looking forward to her droning on and on about how boring it was.
"Dad! We saw Native Americans at camp and it was SOOOO cool!" she said.
There's probably some deep moral I could pull from the story, but I'm too busy being annoyed by the fact that the kid already knows to change her words to make sure she keeps her dad happy. That's going to be a pain in my ass for a loooooong time.
