Audio

In an effort to offset some of the eventual bad habits she might learn from us, like scratching her parts in public or asking a member of the wait staff for some ketchup to put on her steak, we’re trying to get Leta to ask for things nicely. It’s the least we could offer humanity.

Whenever she demands something that isn’t unreasonable, like chocolate candy for breakfast or maybe some ice in her bourbon, we stop her and tell her not to ask us like that. “Say please,” one of us will say, and then we wait for her to comply. If she doesn’t then we try something more convincing. Like spanking. Or yanking her fingers out of their sockets.

We didn’t realize that after she says please both of us were praising her with a hearty, “That’s right!” until she started tacking that on to her request: “More chips, please, that’s right!” And now when we tell her to ask nicely she always includes “that’s right!” plus an extra “huh?” because it’s all she ever hears.
If both Jon and I were forced to take that one word out of our vocabulary this house would suddenly become a family of mutes.

Here is an audio clip of Leta asking nicely.