There is a song by Kelly Clarkson that is called "Dumb + Dumb = You." It's not a particularly remarkable or even memorable song. It's the sort of album filler that gets ignored. It's neither bad enough to warrant an actual opinion, nor is it good enough to make you take notice and start singing along.
It is such a nothing song that after reviewing it to make sure it was OK for little ears to hear, I thought nothing of it. There's no swearing or anything like that, so I added it to our regular car rotation. The regular car rotation is comprised of almost exclusively obnoxious pop music, so more is better. Repetition is the source of the crazy-making. Sanity finds solace in a larger library of terrible.
As Alexis and I were making our way to camp one morning, the background music turned from Big Time Rush and Maroon 5 to Justin Bieber and otherwise awful music. I didn't hear it because I was focused on every possible thing other than the noise. Alexis, on the other hand, was focused almost entirely on the sounds coming through the car speakers. There is always a dance in her head and a song in her heart, so it makes sense that she was carefully listening to the new-to-her song as she tried to determine if she should memorize it and sing it over and over and over and over until my head explodes, or if it was just as nothing as I thought it was.
By the time Clarkson got around to singing the chorus a second time, Alexis had developed a very strong opinion. "Momma, can you change the music, please? This song is too mean," she reported.
She was genuinely upset.
The lyrics she found offensive were these:
"Dumb plus dumb equals you."
Alexis was near tears as she continued on to tell me about how it was so very mean to not just call someone dumb, but to call them dumb over and over again. She was SO very upset.
And I couldn't have possibly been happier about it.
I don't enjoy the kid being miserable at all, but knowing we've practically made it to the eve of second grade with her still thinking it's WAY too mean to call someone "dumb" is some good stuff.
Never change, kid. Never change.
